Several days earlier, Camellya had already arrived in Ragunna.
The sea breeze in this city always carried a damp, briny scent, similar to a certain vague warmth from her memories.
She stood on these unfamiliar streets. Many of her memories had long since vanished like the receding tide. Even that person's face had grown hazy and indistinct, reduced to nothing more than a blurred silhouette.
But that didn't matter.
A certain instinct, almost primal, like a fine thread pulling a kite along, told her, he was here. Right here. Beneath this azure sky, at the end of some winding cobblestone path, or in front of a coffee shop around some corner.
She didn't know exactly where he was, nor what identity he currently bore.
Perhaps she had already brushed past him without knowing. Perhaps he was standing behind some window, gazing quietly out.
Or perhaps, he too had sensed her arrival.
What was that phrase…?
Ah, that's right. Fated.
Even without deliberately searching, they would eventually, at some utterly unexpected moment, be pushed back into each other's presence by destiny itself.
When that time came, the sea breeze would still, the clamor would fade, and they would surely recognize the starlight in each other's eyes.
And so, Camellya finally found him.
On that very night, at the hour when the sun sank into the western horizon, she had walked into that concert hall alongside the girl now standing before her.
His features had long since blurred in her memory, yet the instant he appeared, some instinct born from the very depths of her soul supplied the answer, it was him.
He was the one she had crossed oceans of people to find. Her one and only, seed of fate.
Camellya had not chosen to barge recklessly into his life. Instead, she had bided her time, watching from the shadows.
And then, she had witnessed everything, witnessed him and that girl named Phrolova walk toward a bitter parting of ways.
Though she did not understand the reasons behind it, the eyes that had observed it all narrowed ever so slightly.
She would not let a single soul who stood against him go unpunished.
And what's more…
This Phrolova… did not seem simple in the slightest.
The corner of Camellya's lips curved into a faint arc, carrying a hint of icy sharpness and a touch of playful intrigue.
She studied the figure before her with great care, as though examining a flower born from the same root as herself, yet blooming in the completely opposite direction…
A red spider lily.
"It seems," she said, lightly brushing her cheek and drawing out her voice, "that there is also a past hidden between you and him."
Phrolova furrowed her brow, observing Camellya, who had appeared at some unknown moment.
From the black flower adorning her hair, it wasn't difficult to discern her identity, a Bloom Bearer of the Black Shores.
"That has nothing to do with you." Phrolova's voice was cold and crisp, devoid of any emotional fluctuation. "What does someone from the Black Shores want with me?"
"Nothing to do with me?" Camellya covered her mouth, her laughter chiming like wind bells. "Mm, it's true that what lies between you and him is not my place to interfere. It's just… seeing you walk so closely beside him right here," she pressed lightly against her chest, "I can't help but feel jealous."
She was clearly smiling, yet when the girl's final words fell, they faintly carried a trace of bone-deep chill.
Vines coiled upward along her arm, tiny buds slowly blooming open at their tips.
All of a sudden, the thorn-covered vine shot forth like a venomous serpent striking from its lair, tearing through the air straight toward Phrolova's face!
Yet with the merest, casual flick of the spider lily in her hand, Phrolova effortlessly neutralized the fierce attack.
Amidst the scattering petals, not a single fold of her clothing was disturbed.
"Oh my, you actually blocked that?"
"It seems you might be a sufficiently interesting opponent."
Camellya tilted her head slightly, her smile sweet yet dangerous.
"In that case, I'll treat this as rehabilitation training, before my reunion with him!"
The instant her words faded, the battle began.
Camellya's laughter, tinged with a trace of mania, echoed through the night, playing the overture to this sudden, violent duel.
The crimson long blade in her hand carved through the darkness, bearing down on Phrolova with a biting, icy gleam.
Phrolova's face was cold as frost. The spider lily in her hand twirled gently.
In the next second, the phantom image of Hecate coalesced from the void, barely intercepting Camellya's tempestuous charge.
Phrolova truly could not comprehend it.
It wasn't that she had never dealt with the Bloom Bearers of the Black Shores before. But those individuals mostly abided by certain unspoken rules. Unless absolutely necessary, they would never readily cross blades with her.
Yet this girl before her…
Without the slightest omen, without any reason, she had bared her fangs.
It was exactly like that madman Scar, who never followed any convention, always improvising with absolutely no sense of aesthetic, carelessly destroying everything so meticulously arranged.
No…
Perhaps there was a reason after all.
"Ahahahaha—!"
Camellya gave free rein to her surging emotions. Her euphoric laughter intertwined with the sharp ring of clashing blades, weaving a strange and fervent melody.
She had always craved battle against the strong. As for the so-called duties of a Bloom Bearer, or the heavy burden of saving the world…
She had never taken any of it to heart.
What she cared about, from beginning to end, was only him.
"Yes, just like that! Let me savor this more! Give me more!"
Amidst her laughter, Camellya flipped her wrist. The crimson longsword struck like a viper's tongue. In a single, exquisite sidestep, she slipped past Hecate's blockade with uncanny precision and closed in on Phrolova, the razor-sharp blade howling through the air as it slashed down with brutal force!
Phrolova's gaze remained cold as ice.
Faced with the lethal edge bearing down on her, she merely raised the seemingly delicate and fragile spider lily in her hand.
Clang—!
A crisp, ringing note. That supple flower stem, in an almost inconceivable manner, steadily caught the ferocious strike.
Even so, the sheer, crushing force behind the blow still forced Phrolova back a small step, the heel of her shoe carving a faint trace into the ground.
"What exactly—are you trying to do?" she demanded.
"What am I trying to do?" Camellya tilted her head, as if she had just heard a rather amusing question. Then, that gleeful smile bloomed across her face once more, more fervent than before. "I don't know either."
"I just… really enjoy fighting strong opponents. And besides you're with the Fractsidus. You're his enemy. So naturally… you're my enemy too."
She paused, her smile undiminished. "Not to mention… you even went and kissed him."
At this, the girl's voice suddenly softened, carrying a kind of almost innocent cruelty.
"You know what? It felt as if you suddenly snatched away a candy jar that belonged only to me."
Vines slithered soundlessly around her. Murderous intent and mirth intertwined in her eyes, forming a dangerous, dazzling tapestry.
"I won't allow anyone to take him away from my side—"
"Do I make myself clear?"
Phrolova stared at that pure yet twisted, smiling face and coldly spat out two words.
"Mad woman."
"So what if I am? I don't care in the slightest what any of you think of me." Camellya's smile remained radiant, laced with a careless, unrestrained wildness. "After all, no matter what I become, he would never, ever hurt me."
The moment those words fell, a layer of frost visibly settled over Phrolova's exquisite features.
That place where the blade had torn through her… a faint ache seemed to stir there once more.
Sharper, even, than before.
"Oh? Did that make you angry?" Camellya took in every minute shift in the other girl's expression, the corner of her lips curling into a provocateur's triumphant arc.
In the very next second, Phrolova violently tore away the bandage over her right eye.
That face, which had always maintained an air of elegance and poise, now utterly crumbled. A chilling, terrifying rage churned at the bottom of her eyes.
Yet just before she lost control entirely, a portal silently bloomed open and swallowed her whole, like a whirlpool.
"Eh?" Camellya blinked, looking around in bewilderment at the suddenly empty surroundings. "Ran away again? Where did she hide this time?"
She puffed out her cheeks in dissatisfaction, but the frustration lasted only a handful of seconds.
Then, as if shrugging off some trivial, unimportant matter, she gave a light, carefree shrug, and that brilliant light rekindled in her eyes once more.
"Oh, forget it, forget it. Next up it's time to go find my seed of fate!"