Noble recognized the arrow that tore apart the PTV. She had seen it once before when it helped to take down a dragon. Based on the minimal damage that it had done, the arrow was either not charged or no essence had been funneled into the Memory.
'Helie…'
The woman was not sloppy, and she never would have made an error like that. If she had wanted Nephis dead, Helie would have done a better than a half-hearted effort.
So why had she tried it at all?
Noble pressed her lips together. A blood-curdling scream broke her concentration as someone far to her left cried out for help. Other than the driver, the blonde Awakened had been nearest to the PTV when the initial blast had gone off, and a piece of the luxury cruiser had cut deep into the soldier's leg.
Two medics rushed to the woman's side with a stretcher to carry her to their mobile hospital. "I'm Ame. This is going to hurt. Keep your eyes on me while."
"Wait," Nephis called out to the young man.
The medic paused, then turned toward her to attend her first. She held up her hand to halt his progress.
The princess strode forward and knelt beside the warrior. The blonde woman screamed as she tried to sit up to meet Changing Star's gaze.
"Relax, please." Lady Nephis laid her hand below the wound. "Ame, is it? Hold her…both of you." She ordered the two attendants.
The medics complied, and Nephis placed her other hand on the shard of alloy lodged deep in the woman's thigh. It was the only thing preventing the young warrior from bleeding out, which is why the medics had intended to move her for treatment before removing it.
Lady Nephis pulled out the foreign object, and blood gushed from the wound, covering her hands and the ground.
But the flow only continued for a moment. A white radiance emanated from Changing Star's fingertips, quickly engulfing the whole wound.
'She's...in pain!' Noble was not talking about the warrior. That was obvious. She had noticed a spike in Nephis's pain as soon as her Aspect took hold.
From the lack of response on Nephis's face, Noble could see that the pain was a common occurrence.
'Lady Nephis feels pain when she uses her Aspect? What a cruel Flaw.'
Only feeling pain when using an Aspect would make Noble never want to use her power. Yet Nephis was using her healing Ability on a stranger at the cost of her own comfort.
Each Awakened handled their Flaw in their own way, and Changing Star seemed to have decided to cope by embracing the pain as a fact of life. Instead of avoiding the hurt, she dove in and faced it head-on.
When the white light faded, the only sign of the wound was the puddle of blood where the warrior was lying. The soldier sat up and smiled at Nephis.
"Thank you, my Lady."
Changing Star smiled softly, stood, and helped the young woman to her feet. She turned to the medics.
"We must tend to the rest."
Ame glanced at his coworker. "Do you plan to come with us?"
Was it a platitude or did Nephis really mean to accompany them and heal all of the wounded?
"Yes, I do." And in the following minutes, Nephis traveled with the medical team to do just that.
Each time, the silver-haired woman felt pain as she invoked her Aspect. Never once did it show on her face. At most, it showed in the radiance of her eyes, but even then, Noble thought it might be her imagination.
Not that Noble had much time to watch Nephis. All around her, the government had leapt into action. While they hadn't needed to do much while the gate was opening, they had more than enough to clean up now that it was over.
The ground of the park was torn apart, and the towering gate would need to be secured.
Noble helped with righting many of the overturned vehicles. Using her telekinesis, she gathered large swaths of debris and set them in the designated piles for disposal.
Some of the soldiers were already harvesting the shards and carving up any usable meat. Humans had learned not to take anything for granted, and a haul of free meat with no human loss of life was unheard of in the current age. They would not waste the boon.
No one bothered Noble as she worked, and no one questioned her presence. Even if she wasn't a government agent, no one was willing to cross a Master. If they had known she was a Saint, they would have given her an even wider berth.
Not a single person who wasn't being healed by Nephis stood idle. There was so much to do!
That wasn't even counting the work that would need to be completed because of the assassination attempt. Not that the government would be able to discover any clues as to what had happened.
That was made clear a short while later when Kai arrived after having found the nest of the sniper.
He apologetically gave the results of his search.
Noble listened from a safe distance as she lifted an armored PTV and moved it to an undamaged part of the road.
The handsome government Saint had little to offer by way of consolation. There were no signs left at the scene as to the assassin's identity, and the perpetrator seemed to have already gone to the Dream Realm. The trail was cold before anyone even realized it existed at all.
Kai was resolute in his determination, but his promises fell on deaf ears.
Noble turned from her work just as Morgan exploded. Her voice rose, demanding answers which Kai did not have. Her words were full of venom, and her eyes were full of sharp, cruel intent.
The handsome government Saint felt cornered, and he knew that nothing he said could fix the situation that had unfolded.
A princess of Valor had been attacked in a place where the government was the ultimate authority. Though they had not been complicit in the attempt, they were responsible for their response and finding out who had committed the vile act.
Morgan ripped into the government Saint, cutting him with her words even deeper than if she had used her blade.
Only… it was a lie.
Lady Morgan might have had a facade of anger and indignation, but Noble knew it was all a meticulous act for the world to witness.
Inside, Morgan had never been worried. When she looked at the sky, she had been expectant, and even now she felt a sense of triumph. There could only be one reason that Morgan would be experiencing that kind of emotion in the midst of such turmoil.
She had helped cause it. Like Helie, Morgan would not have been so sloppy if the intent had been to take out her adoptive sister. One of the arrows had come at Morgan. That could only have been intentional, which meant Morgan had instructed Helie to do so.
"Once the news gets out, what do you think will happen?" Morgan's loud question silenced those around her, including Kai.
How could he respond? He wasn't meant to. The question was meant to hang in the air.
"Morgan, that's enough." Though her face didn't show it, Nephis was annoyed by her sister's display.
The vermilion-eyed princess lowered her voice, yet somehow that only made it carry more. "No matter. Even without evidence, there are very few archers in the world who are capable of something like that. The government might not have the means, but we of Valor do. It won't be hard to find the suspect after investigating each of them. And when we do... mark my word, Saint Kai, there will be hell to pay."
While the bulk of the speech was bravado, the last part of Morgan's final sentence held truth that Noble couldn't ignore. She suddenly understood what had just transpired.
'I think I am going to be sick...'