As the Knight began walking toward Shura, the woman moved first.
Quickly.
She stepped between them before she even seemed to realize she was doing it. One trembling arm lifted slightly backward toward Shura, shielding him without looking away from the armored figure approaching through the ruined shop.
"He did nothing," she said firmly. "He was trying to help me."
Shura lowered the belt from his hand.
The metallic mask hanging from it struck the wooden floor with a heavy clang.
The sound cut sharply through the silence.
The Knight's visible eye shifted toward the mask instantly.
Not surprise. Recognition.
Then the pain returned.
Hard.
Shura's stomach twisted violently as if his body had only now remembered what had happened. His breath caught halfway through his chest. The side of his face burned where the punch had landed, and a dull pulse spread through the back of his skull with every heartbeat.
His legs weakened beneath him.
He lowered himself against the wall beside the broken shelves and sat heavily against the wood.
For a moment, the room felt far away again.
The ringing inside his ears returned faintly.
Glass. Smoke. Beacon-light. Bloodless flesh.
The Knight took three slow steps forward.
Then stopped.
One armored hand rose toward the brow of his visor in a brief, precise motion—not a salute meant to inspire confidence, but something procedural. Automatic. A gesture worn smooth through repetition.
Steel scraped softly against steel.
"Did I frighten you?" the Knight asked calmly.
The question unsettled the room more than the violence had.
The severed arm still lay across the floor behind him, dark smoke curling slowly from the stump instead of blood. The unconscious man twitched once against the boards.
Nothing about the room felt safe enough for calmness.
Yet the Knight carried it naturally.
He lowered his hand and returned the blade to its sheath with deliberate care.
Click.
The locking mechanism echoed through the shop.
"Relax," he said.
Not comforting. Instructional.
The woman exhaled shakily for what seemed like the first time in minutes.
The Knight turned toward the collapsed man again.
Shura watched the smoke carefully.
Not the missing arm. Not the wound.
The smoke.
The Knight noticed.
His visible eye lingered on Shura for half a second before shifting away again.
Then his attention dropped toward the floor.
Broken glass glittered beneath the Beacon glow spilling through the cracked front window. Thin streaks of reflected amber stretched across the ruined boards like veins of light.
A thin line of blood traced beneath the woman's foot.
"You're injured," the Knight said.
She blinked and looked down as if only now realizing the pain existed.
"It's fine, I—"
Before she could finish, the Knight stepped forward.
One armored arm slid carefully beneath her knees while the other steadied her back. With surprising ease, he lifted her onto the counter. The old wood creaked softly beneath the combined weight of steel and cloth.
"Sit still."
His tone wasn't gentle.
It was practiced.
The Knight crouched and removed a compact bandage roll. Even through the gauntlets, his movements remained controlled as he brushed fragments of glass away from her heel.
A shard clicked softly against the floor.
The woman stared at him in visible confusion.
The same man who had crossed the room fast enough to sever an arm now knelt calmly cleaning blood from her skin.
Shura watched silently from against the wall.
The Knight wrapped the bandage tightly around her foot.
"Panic causes worse damage than blades do," he said.
The woman let out a nervous breath that almost became laughter.
Not because she felt safe.
Because someone else had taken control of the disaster.
The Knight tied the final knot and rose slowly.
Behind him, the unconscious man twitched again.
One blackened vein spread farther beneath his neck with a faint cracking sound beneath the skin.
The woman saw it this time.
Her face paled immediately.
"What… is happening to him?"
The Knight looked down at the drifting smoke rising from the severed arm.
"He forced Viora through his body incorrectly," he answered.
Shura lifted his head slightly.
"Then why let people use it?" he asked quietly. "Why not stop them? Or teach them properly?"
Silence followed.
Not hesitation.
Weight.
The Knight stood motionless for several seconds.
Outside, distant canal machinery groaned somewhere beyond the walls of the district. The low mechanical heartbeat of Ossuarium continued as if nothing inside this room mattered at all.
Finally, the Knight spoke.
"Because people believe Viora is power."
A pause.
His visible eye shifted once more toward the drifting smoke.
"It isn't."
Another pause.
"It's a burden."
The words carried no anger.
Only exhaustion.
The woman swallowed uneasily.
"Then… what is that?" she asked, staring at the corrupted veins.
"The body failing to carry what the mind opened."
The room fell silent again.
Shura felt the words settle strangely inside him.
Not because they explained anything.
Because they sounded like something spoken from experience.
The Knight stepped toward a nearby shelf and picked up a loose cloth. Then he crouched beside the broken glass scattered across the floor and began gathering the larger pieces together.
The woman blinked.
"You don't need to do that," she said quietly.
"Yes," the Knight replied.
Glass scraped softly against cloth.
"I do."
He continued gathering the shattered pieces one by one.
"Duty doesn't end after the blade."
Another piece disappeared into the cloth wrapping.
"Someone still has to clean what's left."
Shura watched him carefully.
The statement didn't sound noble.
It sounded rehearsed.
Like something the Knight reminded himself of often enough to keep moving forward.