The battlefield had become Ravel Phoenix's personal hell—constructed entirely from her own failure.
I should have listened.
The thought circled her mind like a vulture, picking at the exposed wound of her mistake. Rossweisse had warned her. The Valkyrie understood what Ravel—raised in devil nobility's protective cocoon—couldn't possibly grasp: Fenrir wasn't some mindless beast to be outmaneuvered with simple tactics.
The god-slaying wolf possessed intelligence that would shame most generals.
It had orchestrated this entire sequence. Crippling Saji wasn't the objective—forcing Ravel to reveal her position was. The Phoenix Tears weren't collateral damage. They were the primary target.
Cut the enemy's supply lines. Elementary military doctrine, executed with surgical precision by a creature that could barely be called mortal.
Rossweisse had seen it coming. Had tried warning her.
And Ravel, in her inexperienced arrogance, had prioritized immediate treatment over strategic safety.
Now Saji lived. At the cost of everyone else's hope.
We're playing a Soulsborne boss fight, some distant part of her mind observed with grim humor. Ten seconds in, we've landed one hit that shaved off point-two percent of its health bar. And we're already out of Estus Flasks.
One-shotting this encounter? Mathematically impossible.
"Lady Ravel, what are you doing?? Evacuate the casualty—NOW!"
Rossweisse's voice cracked through her spiral of self-recrimination. Above, the Valkyrie's Mistilteinn staff blazed with magical fury—a concentrated beam capable of vaporizing entire townships crashed down upon Fenrir's raised claw.
The explosion painted the wasteland in violent crimson.
For one heartbeat, dust obscured everything.
When it cleared, Fenrir stood untouched. Not even singed fur.
"That's... impossible..."
Sona Sitri had just arrived with her remaining peerage, only to witness magical firepower that could level city blocks splash off Fenrir's hide like rainwater.
Rossweisse specialized in offensive magic. Among sorcerers, she was a berserker—subscribing entirely to the "glass cannon" philosophy. All damage output, zero defensive consideration.
Yet even her devastating assault couldn't scratch this monster?
"Foolish."
From his aerial position, Loki's cold laughter carried across the battlefield. Despite Rias and company's coordinated assault forcing him into defensive posturing, his voice dripped with contemptuous confidence.
"Fenrir represents my crowning achievement. Your pathetic magical attacks are less than ticklish to him. Those god-slaying fangs could rend even the Two Heavenly Dragons themselves!"
The strategic picture crystallized in Sona's mind with terrible clarity.
We had it backwards.
They'd assumed their role was stalling Fenrir while Rias's team eliminated Loki. A race against time where victory lay in superior execution.
The truth was far grimmer.
Both sides were racing. Both sides were stalling.
Loki occupied their main force, waiting for Fenrir to breach their defenses systematically. To dismantle them one by one.
And the god-slaying wolf possessed exactly that capability.
But surrender wasn't in the Sitri vocabulary.
"Lady Ravel!" Sona's voice cut through with absolute authority. "Rossweisse and you—extract Saji immediately! We'll buy time!"
Her hands moved, magical circles igniting. Water condensed from atmospheric moisture, taking serpentine form—a hydro-dragon rivaling Jörmungandr's proportions. It crashed forward with tsunami force, coiling around Fenrir's mountain-sized frame like a constrictive python.
"Y-yes!"
Multiple warnings had finally penetrated Ravel's fog of guilt. She seized Saji's collar with desperate strength, wings spreading as she launched skyward—Rossweisse's covering fire creating a corridor of suppression behind them.
Below, Fenrir made no attempt at pursuit.
If anything, the god-slayer seemed... amused. Like a cat tolerating a mouse's escape because the hunt proved more entertaining than the kill.
To Fenrir, this wasn't combat.
This was play.
❁❁❁❁
Finally. Safe distance established.
Ravel touched down behind a rocky outcropping—barely qualifying as "removed from immediate danger." Saji lay unconscious but breathing, Phoenix Tears having already sealed his bisected body back together.
She deposited him in a wind-sheltered alcove before turning back toward—
CRACK!
The battlefield situation had deteriorated.
"Excellent! Maintain pressure! Buy Ravel enough time to secure the casualty!"
Sona's water dragon constricted tighter, magical reinforcement layers stacking as Rossweisse and others unleashed synchronized bombardment. For one glorious moment, the combined assault seemed effective—radiance painting the wasteland in apocalyptic colors, actually appearing to slow the god-slayer's advance.
Then—
Pop.
Not a detonation. A deflation. Like puncturing a balloon.
The hydro-dragon burst apart, transformed from tactical asset to scattered rainfall in an instant. Simultaneously, Fenrir's physical form dissolved—becoming liquid shadow that merged with earth itself.
Every subsequent magical strike hit empty air, churning up dust clouds where their target had simply... ceased existing.
"No—!"
Sona's pupils contracted to pinpoints.
We underestimated him again.
Shadow-walking. Intangibility. Fenrir had possessed escape capabilities all along. Everything before this moment—the "struggle," the apparent difficulty—pure theater. The god-slayer indulging prey's delusion of competitiveness.
And now he'd vanished. Destination obvious. Target singular.
BOOM!!
The rocky outcropping exploded.
Not from external bombardment—from within. As if geological formations themselves had been invaded by malignant tumors that detonated simultaneously.
Fenrir erupted from stone and earth like some primordial leviathan breaching. The unconscious Saji became an afterthought—swatted aside like an irritating insect with one contemptuous head-shake.
Then those jaws opened.
God-slaying fangs framed Ravel's entire existence—a maw capable of swallowing buildings aimed at one frozen devil girl hovering mid-takeoff, reaction time insufficient by orders of magnitude.
I'm... going to die.
Time crawled. Ravel's head turned incrementally, peripheral vision capturing every serrated edge of those legendary teeth. Each fang gleamed with malevolent purpose, forged from divine-murder mythology itself.
No escape. No defense. This is—
A figure materialized between them.
Not "arrived rapidly" or "intercepted." Materialized—reality editing to place Bokue Keikain precisely where physics insisted he couldn't possibly be.
His arms encircled her. Gentle. Protective.
CRUNCH.
Bone shattered with crystalline clarity. Blood and saliva sprayed in arterial patterns, painting the wasteland in abstract violence.
When Fenrir's jaws reopened, every single god-slaying fang had snapped at the root—reduced to jagged stumps oozing divine ichor.
Bokue remained perfectly composed, Ravel cradled in his arms without a single scratch marring her skin.
"God-slaying fangs, huh?" His tone carried academic disappointment. "Still not quite there."
❁❁❁❁
Kilometers distant, Kuroka—who'd been observing Rias's combat performance with almost maternal interest—clicked her tongue while rising fluidly to her feet.
"Honestly, Bokue... All that talk about 'giving the girls opportunities to prove themselves,' then you're the first one breaking formation." Her voice mixed exasperation with fondness. "Whatever. Guess I'm getting my exercise too."
Her golden eyes narrowed, focusing on aerial combat where Loki had managed to scorch Asia's hand during close-quarters exchange.
"Can't exactly ignore some foreign god burning my Koneko-chan, now can I? What kind of onee-sama would that make me?"
Darkness rippled around her form as Kuroka launched into motion.
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