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Chapter 88
🕑 Added 2025-10-08 14:56:58 +0000 UTCPeople had many faces, not willingly, not unwittingly. Everyone had different ways of talking to different people, acquaintances, friends, and even those they hated. Everyone then had different ways they were known by all those different people.
Among magi, where such casual aspects of life often directly influenced the nature of certain mysteries, those faces held a lot more credence. They were easily noticeable more often than not.
Yet, to Waver, and all those who had come to know this troublesome student of his, there was a face to Henry Smith that they had all seen and knew well. Easy decisiveness.
He did not mull over things.
He did not question himself.
He just… did.
That simplistic and frustrating way of being had made him many enemies, many rivals, and many friends as well. And what little it was worth, Waver too held an affinity for the youth. That was why, as his teacher, he was afraid for him as well.
It was not that he would harm himself, or get harmed. He was undoubtedly talented. He was undoubtedly powerful. The harm would be psychological, and that much more damning in his case, as impossible as it had become to even keep track of the heights he'd propelled himself to since they first really met in that dingy apartment atop a subpar fish and chips store.
With easy decisiveness came casual brutality.
The slope was steep.
Once he began treading that path, there was no stopping him.
As selfish as it was to want to dictate another's path in life, Waver wanted to stop his student. Desperately, even. He was a good child. He was talented without the brutal taint of the world of magi.
"For convenience's sake, allow me to dub them the Mystic Eyes of Revelation." The fiery-haired Master of Hephaestion said calmly. His pale lips curved into a thin, mischievous smile. He stepped closer. "And, though my talents in identification may be meagre. Those eyes are undoubtedly of the Rainbow Rank. How else to-"
Waver looked at Henry, and realized that his student had no intention of interrupting. So, he turned to shout at someone who would.
"Gray!"
His disciple leapt at the stranger. Hephaestion stepped in between them, blade drawn. Scythe met sword. Steel clanged. Sparks flew. Gray's strength, as incredible as it was, was no match for the might of a great hero of legend. She was forced to back off.
"-describe eyes that pierce the veil we magi use, and commit the greatest of taboos against our peers. You can fully analyze any mystery. You can fully reproduce any mystery. You can read the very flow of mana as easy as breathing. How terribly unfair to the rest of us. Ah, talent is such an annoying thing, wouldn't you agree? Lord El-Melloi II-… No, my successor?"
Waver stared at the man through the dead silence that befell the auction then. Indeed, Trisha had told him what he needed to figure out his identity. The former Lord of Norwich back from when the other departments held no respect for it, a man known simply as Doctor Heartless.
An exceptional magus.
"You-"
Waver was interrupted. The familiars around them broke out into commotion. For a moment, it seemed those animals were no longer controlled by magi of great influence. That they had instead returned to their primal instincts.
Owls hooted. Crow cried out. Mice skittered.
"That is simply absurd!"
"A threat! A threat to us all!"
"Are we certain he isn't lying?"
Waver clenched his fists in grim realization. It was absurd and unbelievable. Yet, it was the truth. And, if the Mage's Association learnt that there existed someone who could do what Henry could, he'd be hunted down and killed at the very minimum. After all, if someone could understand any mystery at a glance, those generations of work the Lords prided themselves on, that was the basis of their influence, were all under immediate threat.
He could just take all that work, and reproduce it far better than any of them.
A threat to the Mage's Association as a whole.
"I guess that's true." Henry finally spoke, "But hm… you guys really like to put my private life under threat, don't you? You, Leandra, here's my answer to that invitation you guys sent over."
He raised two fingers.
With a grin, he turned around.
The next moment, a crimson flash rippled through the train. Pure destructive force came gushing forth and tore all behind him to shreds. It blew through the furniture, ripped away the very metal. The train heaved and groaned, then every single other car behind them was simply blown away into the snowy forest that was once again, all around them.
"You-"
When Leandra spoke out, he simply tapped her on the shoulder without even sparing her a glance. Her body collapsed. Her own neck fell into her lap. Some invisible force pushed the Dead Apostle's representative back when he suddenly turned and began walking towards her until her back was against the steel wall. She struggled a moment before simply phasing away into the metal.
"I see. You're a part of the train. Then, well, I think I'll just destroy it."
He flicked his finger.
The upper half of the car readied for the auction simply slid away. When Waver turned to see why, he saw a cut so clean he doubted an expert swordsman could even hope to recreate something similar. Blood sprayed from headless familiars as they crumbled to the floor.
The only ones spared were the members of the El-Melloi Classroom, Hishiri, and Olga Marie with her attendant. Trisha hugged the hapless child tightly into her bosom, sparing her from the ruthless violence Henry had so easily unleashed over the span of less than a full minute.
His gaze landed on Hishiri. The member of the Policies Department raised her hands and shook her head from side to side. She carefully chose her words, "B…Believe me. I hold no ill will. Mere curiosity. As… As this is a conflict between you and the Rail Zeppelin, I will not interfere unless the Principles are threatened."
Henry snorted at that.
Doctor Heartless hummed calmly. Hephaestion stood beside him. Somehow, the unseen attack that had made corpses of all else in the car had spared them entirely.
"I think it's time to deal with any threats to my family, permanently." Henry smiled, and raised his hand again. Instead of Red or Blue, purple sparks flew from what little space he left between his thumb and his finger. "And, you don't think I'll be sparing you for tattling, right?"
"Well, you seemed happy enough to let me do it so…" Heartless trailed off, "I guess not. But really, something tells me you had every intention of letting them find out. For my service, I think my life is an adequate payment."
Henry just shook his head.
"Well then… I think you're forgetting something important."
Mana flared. Henry clutched his eyes. Gray shot for Hephaestion again but did little against the servant's overwhelming speed. Yet, Hephaestion never managed to make it to Henry at all. There was another servant with them on the train. One that went unnoticed until now.
"I feel my Master has taken away the spotlight long enough. Don't you? Loathsome puppet."
Hephaestion's sword met Nobunaga's katana. Suddenly, the Archer-class servant placed a foot on the blade clashing with hers, forcing it to trail across her own blade until it was forced to the floor, under her heel. She held out a hand, the air burned and then she held a matchlock rifle in her grasp.
She pulled the trigger without hesitation, faster than Hephaestion could react. Flames erupted from the muzzle, and blew through the servant's shoulder.
"You who laud yourself as a child of a God, surely you feel it." Oda Nobunaga grinned, flicking her wrist and stabbing her sword through Hephaestion's guts, "I am the one who set aflame the heavens. I deny the Gods. You who are bound to them, I will burn you the same…"
A great part of Oda Nobunaga's legend was his-… or her, vehement hatred for the gods, the ancient ways, and the great harm she inflicted to customs and legends and traditions throughout her campaigns, culminating in her eventually burning the great and ancient Enryaku-Ji Temple on Mount Hiei, an act in open defiance of the divine.
As a servant, Waver had no doubt that such a significant portion of the legend had become some skill. Some skill that gave her an edge against those of divine nature or even mystery. Perhaps, even her very existence now was harmful to such beings.
Yet, Waver realized something else.
Hephaestion and Iskander shared only one such story of being mistaken for one another. It wasn't even widely known. How then was it that she was able to wield the lightning that came as a by-product of Iskander declaring himself the Son of the God-King Zeus?
How was Nobunaga able to overpower her to such an extent when Hephaestion's own legend was anything but close to the divine?
Suddenly, it hit him. All the comments made by Hephaestion when they first met suddenly made sense. He understood why he had not seen her at the Ionioi Hetairoi… yet, confronting that was the farthest thing from his mind.
Right now, as a teacher, he had something much more important to do.
"Professor, what are you doing-"
Steeling himself, Waver inhaled deeply. Then, though he was not a magus of incredible talent or a wielder of any ancient weapon, Waver El-Melloi II stepped out in between his student and Heartless. As Hephaestion tore herself free with a sudden barrage of lightning that even pushed Nobunaga back, then, as the Demon King lashed out with her guns, Waver did not falter.
He passed the clashing servants, ignoring Gray's confused requests to hide. When he reached his student, Waver reached past the dreadful purple sparks borne into the world of whatever incredible mystery Henry was about to unleash with his bare hands.
And, he grabbed his wrists.
"Henry, stop."
His student tilted his head, confusion writ across his face.
"This is enough. You've shown them what happens when they cross too many lines." Waver tightened his grip impotently, "Don't go down this road. As your teacher, I forbid it. Life's a treasured-"
"Professor, don't pull a Naruto on me. I'm not about to become a murder hobo just cause someone threatened me." Henry… deadpanned. Waver found himself deeply confused. "I was just making sure no one else got the same idea."
He looked around.
"But I ended up killing the audience. Gonna have to do it all over again."
-
Hope you enjoyed.
Please, do comment so I know I did well.
Comments
DaoOfAnime
A double. What a blessing
Bleap
Aye, fair enough. But, trust me just a bit.
dad
Ngl I'm so tired of Heartless getting away with his bullshit because of a well-timed interruption, I've seen it happen like 4 times in different fics by now
