The Demon Lord Is An Angel
Chapter 178: Disconnecting

Chapter 178: Disconnecting

The next few days, Kir had nothing to do but occasionally answer questions for Lumin.

That night, Amarena ran out of patience. Kordia and Stella were absent from the room, checking in on Sam, so it was just the two of them.

"There’s something I need to tell you." She pointed at Kir. "Come with me."

Kir, who had been sitting by the window looking out at the small garden, frowned. "Why note here?"

"I can’t take this sitting around. I’m going to lose my edge," she’d been pacing back and forth in the room for most of the hour before talking to Kir. Now, she walked over to the couch and pulled her sword out of the crack between cushions.

"Wait for Lumin. I’ll ask her to find someone for you," Kir sighed.

"I’m not waiting for anyone; least of all waiting for you to accept the reality of what happened."

Kir felt a spark of anger, but it drowned in the wave of sorrow that had been flowing through his heart and mind. "What is there to accept? I already know I failed. Noir is dead because of me."

"He is dead because of your- Because of Maledict, and you know it. So quit moping around and... and get better!"

Kir scoffed. "You can’t just tell someone to get better..."

"I mean work harder! Learn more! Whatever it is you do to get stronger! Just stop... doing nothing."

Kir raised his hands and then let them drop. "What would you have me do?" he asked.

Amarena let out a frustrated grunt. "I already told you to come with me."

When Kir didn’t move, Amarena stomped over, grabbing him by the horn and pulling him from the chair.

"Ow-ow! What the fuck are you doing?"

"I’m taking you to the garden," she growled, kicking out the door and pulling him past Terry, who had been waiting outside and did not seem disturbed in the slightest. The room was near a stairwell that led out to the small garden Kir had looked at through his window.

Once they were in the garden, Amarena pulled Kir hard, forcing him to stumble to the middle of the rectangular patch of grass.

"Draw your weapon!" she barked. "Prove I’m not wasting my time with you."

"I don’t want to fight you," Kir huffed.

"We have never truly fought, Kir," she replied. "And you have yet to realize why you always lost our spars."

"Why is that, then?" Kir gestured with sarcastic surety. "Because I’m weak? Because I don’t know myself? Hm?"

Something strange happened.

One moment, Amarena was standing there, glaring at him. The next, there was only an echo of her passage in the ambient mana, before she kicked him in the back.

"It’s because you’re slow!" she declared. Another flash of mana, and she punched him in the gut. "Slow to learn what really matters to you!" In another flash, she stomped on his tail. "Slow to risk everything." Another flash, and she was back in front of him, the edge of her sword at his neck. "Slow to be the warrior you are."

Pain and humiliation had just been beaten into Kir’s body and mind. His breathing grew ragged as he struggled with both.

How dare she? How DARE she kick him while he was down?!

It did not come from a place of reason. One moment, Kir had begun to press forward, into her blade - forcing her to pull back as he almost made her cut through his neck - and the next, he had kicked her halfway across the field, leaving bloody spots through her tunic from his toe claws.

"You insensitive, self-righteous bitch!" Kir snarled as he reached into the air and drew Kangetsu. "Noir is DEAD!"

He rushed for her, as she shouted, "Mourning won’t bring him back!"

He poured on the speed, but she was faster. She blocked his first strike, which he’d aimed for her shoulder, seeking to overpower her.

"It won’t bring me back when I die, either," she growled.

"Don’t you fucking dare..." As their blades held against each other, his slowly carving into hers, his face was a mask of pain and frustration... But so was hers.

"You don’t get it!" With a sudden, rotating kick to his leg, Amarena tumbled Kir, putting him on the ground as he dropped Kangetsu. He turned, and she held her cracking sword to his throat. "I am a maven, Kir. My aspect is speed. And... until that day in the camp, I did not know I could use it fully again."

"What are you saying?" he panted, catching his breath as he held himself still.

"I’m saying..." She took a deep breath, sighing out as she looked at the ground. "I was bound by an oath to Leviathan, never to harm myself knowingly... And it was Maledict who taught her about oath magic. I felt for so long that he had manipulated her into weakening me... But now, unbound, I feel again that my mavenry is killing me, Kir. It uses me up. My mother feared what I would do to myself to get stronger."

Amarena paused, her eyes thoughtful. "She was right. That is why I need a master. Someone who can help me get to my next evolution... Then I’ll have time and strength to overcome my magic, grow stronger than the effect it has on me... and figure out who I am going to be now that she is dead..."

"What do you-"

"I’m leaving, Kir. I need to grow stronger... and I now realize I can’t do that around you." She looked away, guilt coloring her face.

"Because you hate me?" Kir asked.

"Because you weaken me!" she ran a hand along her horn. "Because I... like you. And I hate that I like you, Kir..." She stepped forward, stabbing her blade into the grass and picking up Kangetsu. Then she waited as Kir forced himself to stand.

"Amarena... I’m sorry... I..." He inhaled. "I like you too... and... I don’t hate that. I don’t think I ever will."

Grabbing him by the horn, Amarena kissed him, forcefully.

At first, Kir resisted out of surprise, but soon his lingering grief and pain were shoved aside by the softening of Amarena’s kiss, the temptation of comfort, and the subtle harmony of their cubi blood.

When she parted, Amerena let out a rueful laugh. "Heaven, I want to take you right now... but I don’t know if I could leave after."

"I’m yours if you want me," Kir whispered, planting his forehead against hers. "But I won’t stop you..."

"I do want you... But Kir, I am not yet ready..."

She backed away, patting the edge of Kangetsu into her other palm. Then she looked down...

"Is this not the mark of your oath to Noir?" she held the blade up, and in the moonslight, Kir saw it.

Where the blank circle had been, a circle awaiting whatever future enchantment Kir saw fit to have scribed, there was now the crescent-like mark that he had once shared with Noir.

"What does it mean?" Kir was astonished. Could it be...

"That is something I would like to learn as well," said a nearby voice.