Saten faced off against an approaching lanky figure on the roofs of the royal capital. He himself a Saint, her title that she earned with blood protecting the innocent was there no longer. Saten’s not a Saint anymore.

She’s an attendant to an upstart Lord, at best his favorite mistress and a war veteran at such a young age. She got out of the war fine, she had her health, beauty, and made some friends recently. It had been lonely at times, the few friends she had during her training at the Sanctus Sancti either jealous of the attention she got or harbored ulterior motives. That’s why, she didn’t let anyone know about her real self. That’s why, she didn’t want anyone to know that she had shameful desires. Even talking about it with D would bring a blush to her face. She was lucky. D accepted her violence, her shame, with no complaint. Being a dragon helped a lot for D. Men usually like women for their looks, women usually like men for their confidence but either way appearance is vital for an intimate relationship. For Saten, that was a little different, that’s all. There was nothing strange about her at all. She would insist that, and so when the Saint called her name-

“Satin Saint Saten. No more a Saint. How pitiable. I loved the consonance. It’s just Satin Saten now, isn’t it? Sounds like a licentious woman. Out of respect for your service and accomplishments, I won’t call you that. Is that agreeable to you, Saten?” The lanky Saint said.

Baquash, he had it out for her. After all she-

Saten checked her light clad hands and legs, her satin outfit covering her body tightly. Inside, light had spread over her skin, useful as both armor and offense. Saten’s main strength as a Saint was her ability to spread a extremely thin layer of light clad over herself. It became one of the reasons she was accepted at such a young age into the folds of the Saints, along with her record of military service. The people she saved, the people she killed, the battle she won with her efforts alone. It was undeniable. Even if she was a beauty and young, they couldn’t deny her worth as a Saint candidate as well and so-

“Yes. Thank you, Baquash. I didn’t expect you to come all the way here, just for me,” Saten tightened her fist as she saw Baquash advance. She can’t run. He’s faster. She knew that much about him, and more.

Baquash’s thin frame surrounded itself by floating blades of light, he spread his arms out. Clad in black religious outfit, he clad his hands in white light with magic. Thick white light. He was wearing normal pants compared to Saten’s shining white legs with white thighhighs. Baquash didn’t even give those legs a glance.

“So! Do you know you’ve been excommunicated? I can’t in good conscience bring you justice without knowledge of your crimes.”

“I heard,” Saten said. She kept her eyes on him as he drew closer. If her Dad didn’t send the letter, she would have welcomed Baquash as a friend. He saw her stance and activation of magic and figured she was wise to the current events. There was another reason he assumed she knew as well, her father is a Saint too. Saint Koto. If he came-

“Koto told you, no doubt. I assumed he would. Saint like that wouldn’t abandon his daughter for work. He’s a strange one. And you, so are you.” Baquash stopped and lowered his arms. His eyebrows went up, bemused. “Consorting with a Dragon Demon King? Really? You? What nonsense gave you that idea, Saten, that anyone would be okay with a boy running around with dragon wings and think there was nothing wrong with that at all?”

Baquash knew nothing about chimeras himself. His goal here was only one, anyways.

“Tell me that your excommunication was a mistake, that the Dragon boy has bewitched you, and we shall move along to your execution.”

“Baquash. This isn’t what the Sanctus Sancti wants. This isn’t justice,” Saten said. She opened her hand and took a stance flexing her leg into the roof. It cracked.

Baquash spread his arms wide. “Do you think that I am just looking for an excuse to get away with murdering a fellow Saint? Well-”

He released all of his light swords into Saten at once.

“Then you are absolutely correct!” A open smile on his face triggered the start of the fight as he summoned countless more light swords in a rain. Dragon Demon King? Who cares? Not all Saints were nice people, you know? And that was how Saten attained her lofty position so early. And that was why she saved so many at that battle. Because she killed-

“Your brother, I’m sorry. But, it’s isn’t ‘just’ for me to die here!” Saten charged through the light swords, knocking away those she could with her hands and taking the rest head on with her aegis. She would take her time closing distance against a normal opponent. At range, it would be an inevitable loss against a stronger opponent. At close range, she would have her only chance. She had to sacrifice everything to finish this right now.

“You think this is about my brother? Please. I want to see you suffer, Saten!” Baquash’s arm grasped the air beside him. Forming together from specks of light, a massive sword of thick light pulled itself out of the ether and he swung the giant blade onto the oncoming Saten. Saten kicked upwards blocking the blade with a leg, sliding with her other leg along the roof under the blade’s onslaught.

She slid across the ground from the momentum, blocking the giant light sword pressing down on her with one leg, kicking at his legs with the full force of her other leg. Baquash let her. Saten’s leg thudded into Baquash’s right leg, Saten’s face twisted as she felt Baquash push down on top of her.

“Such an easy target. Saten, your specialty of a thin light clad magic is wonderful against magical opponents. It provides so much speed and lithe movements. Against someone like me, who has so much strength in his magic, how did you hope to succeed? Was there anything you could have done!” Baquash laughed as he pushed down further with the heavy light blade, Saten was trapped. In desperation, she kicked the ground and squeezed out. Baquash met her retreat with a hail of light swords. Saten couldn’t get close or she would face his sword, couldn’t retreat because she would face his light sword rain. She had one more option, then, speed.

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“If you wanted to take me on, I would have brought you to justice at any time. Why the excuses? Don’t you want to be honest with yourself?” Saten brushed away the light rain and ran in a semicircle around Baquash, closing in and gaining speed. It was a spiral she made around him on the rooftop, and Baquash laughed at her efforts.

“Truth from the mouths of babes. Indeed. I wasted too much time. But, it’s so easy now, I can write in the report, ‘She consorted with a Dragon Demon Lord. I brought both of them to justice.’ Isn’t that much easier?”

Saten disabled her light clad across her entire body and channeled it onto her attacking leg. She aimed for him. For now, her thin light clad was useless. She made the thickest light clad she could, weaving the magic together like a lattice and pounding her leg straight onto the back of Baquash’s head.

He grabbed that leg. Baquash’s speed matched Saten’s for only a second. He disabled his clad light entirely to give himself that speed, using his body alone. Baquash tightened his grip as he pulled her leg, taking her entire body into the air and summoned a light blade with his other arm. He grabbed the light blade and aimed it at Saten’s unprotected stomach, a wide open mouthed grin as he prepared to stab her.

“Shame! You weren’t the only one who managed to learn a th-”

A blue bolt of light smacked into Baquash, sending him flying into a nearby building and through it into the street below and bounced him into the buildings across the street. The building had a hole through it. A few people looked at the body that flew through, startled at the sight.

Baquash’s unprotected body took heavy damage. Without his light clad activated in that moment he matched Saten’s speed, he had nothing to protect his body but his clothes.

Baquash lied there against the wall of buildings across the street and far below Saten on the roof. Wounded and groaning, his upper body propped up by the building to his back. Shards of woods stuck out in angles all over his body.

Still in midair, Saten felt warm arms circle around her and set her upright. The tall figure checked her body, looking for wounds, and Saten’s eyes teared up looking at him.

“Dad!”

Saint Koto, her father and savior, admonished her.

“Saten, I told you to run away against a strong opponent. What if I wasn’t here?” His tone strict, he patted her head with a huge palm. His eyes kind but devoid of light, a strange man that you couldn’t tell if he cared or not by a glance. Koto turned away, his grim face and a blue needle light sword he summoned into his hand signaled his next action. Saten knew what was next. Saten’s fear of death, staring down Baquash’s attack moments before, and the sudden appearance of the person she wanted to see most in the world. Those were the experiences that lead her to say a stupid thing in that vulnerable moment, looked up at her violent father.

“Dad, don’t kill him! He’s wounded, that’s enough, right?” Saten sputtered out. She regretted saying it.

Koto looked to her. From those eyes and that face, she knew what he was going to say. Inside, Saten admonished herself for thinking that it could be any other way. She listened anyways.

“Justice isn’t enough for me, Saten. Did you forget, acting by your lonesome for so long? That man, I almost saw my beloved daughter killed before my eyes. Forgiveness comes after punishment. Didn’t I teach you that?”

A light sword, blue and thin in his hand. Like a needle, he hefted it and moved. Saten trembled as her father jumped effortlessly to the ground and sauntered over through a broken building, the way created with Baquash’s flying body. Koto stood over Baquash, one Saint straight one Saint bent and whimpering.

Saten looked on, her heart pounding. Saten killed many in the war, including Baquash’s brother. From what he said, that didn’t matter to him, but it mattered to her. Seeing her father standing over an injured man ready to kill him disturbed her. The hatred in her heart from the battle between her and Baquash, her pounding blood, and her love for her father kept her rooted on the roof as she saw what happened next.

Koto raised a blue needle like like sword over a bloody Saint.

“Rest in peace,” Koto prayed. Koto stabbed down into Baquash’s heart. Koto dismissed his needle blue blade of light, people in the street gasping as he turned around and addressed them. A well to do woman with an open mouth was singled out with a booming voice.

“Miss? Please, fetch a cart. This man, he was impersonating a Saint by dress and attacked a civilian. I brought him to justice. Tell the authorities that I am responsible, Saint Koto, and to address their complaints to the Sanctus Sancti.”

Koto had said such similar lines before that he whipped them out without a single pause. Years of experience as one of the strongest saints allowed him that much skill in dealing with commoners. Koto spread his own light clad magic along his body, tiny blue lines of immense strength. Similar to his daughter, they were thin but the strength was incomparable. He stepped casually and that was enough to land him with a graceful bound onto the roof where Saten stood trembling. Koto gathered his daughter to his body with a sweep of his arm like a wing, his hand on her head.

“It’s okay,” he comforted her. “You grew up so tough. It makes me so happy to see you like this, reminds me of better days.” Koto’s eyes were their usual dark color, but he smiled looking down at her form from above.

“Stay away from bad Saints, Saten. This is the second,” Koto said. The first, Baquash’s brother in the war, Saten remembered. “As a civilian and not a Saint, you should be able to do that easily now. Now, tell me all about this dragon boy.”

Koto didn’t believe for a second that D was a Dragon Demon King. After all, he knew that the real reason the Sanctus Sancti spread that rumor was because D was a chimera. Koto knew about chimeras and their danger, one of the few who did. Koto had a history hunting down Laplas, after all. Laplas had a thing for him. It’s not romantic.

Saten looked up to him, tears in her eyes. She was scared for herself, troubled by what her father did in front of her and worried about D all at once. However, she knew that it had to be done. Baquash had to die, and she would have not had a single regret if she could have killed Baquash herself. Saten felt powerless.

“Dad. I-”

She told him about D, but not everything. Just the surface stuff, not about how he was from another world. Saten mentioned his abilities.

At first, Koto smiled, happy that his daughter had found someone she could relate with. Koto was often worried that Saten was doomed to be as antisocial as he was. However, as the conversation bore on and certain facts became known, Koto reached a conclusion. One he couldn’t voice to Saten, both because he was worried for her safety and worried about upsetting her feelings.

Koto said this to himself in his head after.

“That’s no chimera. The Warlock. Alchemy. Saten, you… really do have the worst luck. Being born as my daughter, now this?” The warlock’s tower. The witch to the north with her flying country. Alchemy, and the truth behind it that needed to be preserved. Another misunderstanding was made in that moment. Koto at that point decided he needed to discover the truth behind D’s existence at all costs.

If Saten had only told him ‘he’s from another world and he got his powers from a god’ Koto would have believed her immediately and further trouble would have been avoided. Koto’s that kind of person. If Saten said it, if his daughter said it, he would have believed her. Saten left out the ‘other world’ part out because she didn’t want her dad to think she went crazy.

However, D may not have found out about the other enemies waiting for him in the future. The enemies waiting on the other side of the war. The history behind alchemy. Laplas’s past, and how he actually had something in common with her.