"Freed Sellzen, after being branded a wanted criminal—he stole a fragment of Excalibur before escaping from the Vatican and has been on the run since," Xenovia muttered, holding a piece of paper in her hand. It was the profile of their target. The man depicted looked young, with short white hair and red eyes. But behind that face hid a psychopath who never truly believed in God.
The Vatican hadn't just tasked them with retrieving the fragment—it had also ordered them to bring judgment upon him. From what she'd heard, Freed had been impersonating a priest for a while before committing unspeakable crimes against the nuns. Even if she hadn't been ordered to kill him, Xenovia would've eliminated him first and searched for the fragment on his corpse afterward.
"Is he really in there?" Irina asked, eyeing the old, abandoned factory ahead. Her hand rested on the hilt of her holy sword at her waist.
"Yes. The devil's familiar said the trail led here," Xenovia replied. She slipped the wanted poster into her pocket and brandished her holy sword as they cautiously approached the building.
Inside the crumbling factory, signs of recent habitation were immediately evident—trash littered the floor, and makeshift bedding was tucked into corners. Someone had been living here. As they continued deeper, the two finally came across a rusted hatch set into the ground, slightly ajar.
"This must be it," Xenovia muttered with a frown. An ominous energy seeped out from below. 'Is he conducting some kind of taboo ritual down there?' she thought, resisting the impulse to charge straight in.
She turned to her left—only to find Irina gone.
Acting on instinct, she glanced toward the hatch—and sure enough, Irina was already halfway through, sticking her tongue out before dropping down. "Irina!"
Xenovia had no choice but to follow, jumping down without hesitation.
She landed safely at the bottom, her boots echoing on the dusty concrete floor. Ahead of her was a long hallway, dimly lit by candles mounted along the wall. Irina was already there, pressed against the stone, peering cautiously into a chamber further ahead.
"Irina, please don't—"
"Shh."
Irina silenced her with a whispered gesture. Xenovia frowned but moved to peek into the room as well.
Her breath caught.
A large, blood-inscribed magic circle sprawled across the chamber's center. At its heart lay an unconscious boy—thin, frail, and clearly malnourished. He hadn't been fed in days.
"Finally… I'm so close to achieving my dream!" Freed muttered, laughing maniacally. 'Once the ritual is complete, no one can stop me!' he thought, seething with the memory of his fall from grace. His thirst for revenge against the Vatican had never been stronger.
Swish!
Freed spun around, catching a holy sword strike mid-swing with the silver body of his pistol. "Vatican dogs! So you're the rats who've been snooping around!"
He must have mistaken the devil's familiar for them. But Xenovia wasn't interested in words. She surged forward and landed a kick to his gut, sending him crashing back several feet.
"Xenovia! The boy's alive—just unconscious," Irina called out, kneeling beside the boy after checking his pulse.
"Hah! You came for that trash? Take him, he's useless to me now!" Freed said, brushing himself off with a sinister grin.
Xenovia's instincts screamed at her.
Without hesitation, she shoved Irina aside and raised her sword just as the boy's body began to glow ominously red. Then—
BOOM!
A fiery explosion erupted.
"Hahaha! What a pretty firework!"
"You piece of shit!" Xenovia cursed, gritting her teeth. 'He turned the boy into a bomb!?' Her holy sword flared as she raised it, but her eyes widened when Freed's body began to change.
A horn burst from his forehead. Scaled wings tore from his back.
"Yes... this is it! With this, I am reborn!"
Even his voice changed—deeper, more guttural, as an overwhelming pressure flooded the room. Before them stood a dragon-like humanoid. He turned his reptilian face toward them, the scales along his throat glowing red.
"Irina, dodge!!"
Freed exhaled a stream of blazing fire. The stone floor beneath them melted into magma.
"This is it! Now this is power!" Freed bellowed, his laughter echoing off the chamber walls.
"Hahaha! Now, the power of the Evil Dragon is mine!"
Xenovia and Irina scattered in opposite directions as the stream of flame scorched the stone floor where they had just stood, leaving behind a trail of bubbling molten rock. The heat was suffocating—far more intense than any dragon breath Xenovia had encountered before.
"How the hell did he get this strong!?" Irina shouted, ducking behind a rusted support beam as the remnants of Freed's attack blasted overhead.
"It's the ritual," Xenovia growled, gritting her teeth as she repositioned herself beside a shattered pillar. "He fused with the dragon sealed inside that Sacred Gear—he's no longer human!"
Freed raised his hand, flexing his new, clawed fingers with a wide, fanged grin.
"This power... this power is divine!" he howled. "I feel invincible! Vatican rats like you are nothing to me now!"
Without warning, he vanished from sight. Xenovia's instincts screamed, and she barely raised her sword in time to block a crushing blow from above. The impact drove her into the ground, cracking the concrete beneath her boots.
"Xenovia!" Irina cried, slashing her Mimic blade toward Freed's exposed back—only for him to turn and swat her aside with the back of his clawed hand. She crashed against the wall with a painful grunt, her sword slipping from her grip and clattering across the floor.
"Still got your teeth, huh?" Freed sneered, his reptilian eyes glowing with infernal light. "Then let me rip 'em out!"
He opened his mouth again—another wave of fire bursting forth, this time aimed at Xenovia, who rolled aside just in time. Her clothes singed at the edges as she came up to one knee, coughing from the smoke and heat.
"Dammit… we can't match his speed or strength anymore. He's—"
"Too much," Irina finished, staggering to her feet. Blood trickled down her temple, but her grip tightened around her sword. "We have to stall him. If he gets out of here… innocent people—"
"Won't even know what hit them," Xenovia said grimly.
Freed roared again and charged, his claws digging trenches in the ground as he rushed forward. The two exorcists leaped in opposite directions, narrowly avoiding another devastating strike that tore through a steel beam like paper.
Xenovia gritted her teeth. 'We're not going to make it...'
But then, a sudden weight in the air shifted. Something cold and unfamiliar crept in from the shadows—like frost on a summer breeze.
Freed paused, one claw frozen mid-swing. His reptilian eyes flicked toward the hallway behind the two girls.
Footsteps.
Slow, deliberate. Approaching without hesitation.
A figure emerged from the dim hallway, his hands in his pockets, expression unreadable. Kousuke.
He stopped a few meters away, standing between the two battered girls and the monstrous Freed. His gaze was calm, but the air around him carried a weight—quiet and heavy like the calm before a storm.
"Kousuke…!?" Irina gasped. "How—why are you—!?"
Kousuke didn't answer at first. He simply took a breath and looked toward the transformed Freed, his eyes narrowing.
"So you're the one they were sent after," he muttered. "Can't say I'm impressed."
Freed snarled. "Who the hell are you? Another lapdog from the church? Or maybe one of those pampered devils playing hero?"
"No," Kousuke said simply. He pulled his hands from his pockets and rolled his shoulders, a faint pulse of pressure radiating outward.
"I'm just a guy who doesn't like creeps like you hurting people I care about."
"Then you can die with them!" Freed howled, wings flaring as he shot forward like a meteor, claws raised to cleave through him.
Xenovia's breath caught in her throat.
Irina screamed, "Kousuke, move!"
But he didn't.
He caught the clawed strike.
Barehanded.
A shockwave cracked through the air. Freed's eyes widened as he felt resistance—no, more than resistance. His arm wasn't moving at all.
Kousuke's palm gripped his wrist like a vice, unmoving.
"...Tch. You're not the only one who evolved," Kousuke said, before raising his free arm—and slamming a brutal punch into Freed's gut.
The dragon-hybrid flew backward, crashing through the stone wall behind him and into a heap of broken concrete and steel.
Xenovia blinked. "What… was that?"
"He stopped him… with his bare hand," Irina said in disbelief.
Freed groaned from the rubble, rising shakily. His face twisted in rage and disbelief. "You bastard… what the hell are you!?"
Kousuke stepped forward, cracking his knuckles. "You call yourself 'reborn'... but all I see is a failed monster."
Another step.
Another surge of pressure.
Xenovia felt it clearly now—Kousuke wasn't ordinary. Not at all. That calm, steady pressure was like standing in the presence of something ancient. Something wrong.
"Fall back," he said without looking back. "I'll handle him."
"But—!" Irina protested.
"Go."
His voice left no room for argument.
Irina hesitated, but Xenovia grabbed her arm. "He's right. We're in no shape to fight. Let's trust him—just this once."
Reluctantly, they stepped back toward the hallway.
Kousuke advanced alone, his silhouette framed against the dull flicker of Freed's hellfire.
The dragon hybrid screamed in rage, charging again, his body glowing with magic and hatred.
But Kousuke didn't flinch. His eyes glowed faintly—something primal flickering beneath the surface.
And as the two forces collided once more—
The factory shook.
And outside, the night sky trembled.