Tyvan pulled his head back in confusion.

He had just been kissed?

But why?

Hm. The girl was utterly delirious.

Judging just from the glaze in her eyes, she was suffering from an advanced stage of mana-exhaustion.

He found the invasion of his personal space keenly offensive... but he did not regret his intervention.

If the dry-lipped girl’s mana continued to rise as it had, the damage to the building and its inhabitants would have been difficult for the human authorities to ignore.

Still, his altruism came with an unsavoury drawback. The situation had grown needlessly complex.

“With me. Now,” he said.

He took the girl by the wrist and immediately walked out of the shop, the crowd of onlookers tacitly parting to grant him way.

She was a child, still wearing the uniform of her learning institution.

She was a dangerous child who had come precariously close to unwittingly murdering over two dozen sentients.

Tyvan clenched his teeth as he walked, silently cursing a certain oracle... not that he was unreasonably surprised. The divinations of oracles offered just enough to act. Yet, without fail, the omission of pertinent details rendered the actual process infuriating.

The target was a child.

And Tyvan even had the misfortune of learning her name.

Shay.

It sounded like the disgruntled screech of a harpy.

The girl followed him obediently into the dank and musty alleyway, stumbling like a feverish drunkard. Her forehead was slathered in perspiration and her once-neat twin hairbuns flopped about like wild horse tails.

“Wh-where are we going, noble knight?” she asked.

Noble knight?

Tyvan checked the enchantments on his business attire.

--still intact, its form concealed from mundane vision.

The girl could see magic. That made her more dangerous still.

He took hold of her shoulder and pinned her ungently to the wall.

“N... noble knight?” she said in a small, vulnerable voice.

Killing children was a loathsome affair-- a waste of resources.

He took her wrist and examined her condition. Her mana was still in disarray... but if forcibly released, was not enough to threaten either of them. Her natural potential for magic was abysmal. Her physique... was eerily human.

Then, the kiss...

The purpose of the kiss...

If the girl retained her memories from a previous life, the kiss was a failed attempt to stabilize or empower what little mana she had.

Tyvan’s goal was clear.

He had to kill her.

Any reincarnator that threatened to upset the balance of Archangel had to be removed swiftly and without prejudice.

Shay’s eyes rolled back as she lost consciousness. She slid down the wall, her uniform skirt sweeping up on the bricks in an unflattering manner.

Tyvan closed his eyes.

He slid his gloved hand into his coat... onto the grip of his pistol.

In his new world... he only had a scant two civilian murders to his name.

Neither were children.

Both were deserving.

“Hey! Get away from her!!”

Tyvan slowly craned his head to the side.

The boy from earlier... blundering into something that was clearly beyond his purview.

His uniform was similar to the girl’s, though his coat was splayed open and his tie was crooked.

Disgusting whelp.

He made a striking silhouette upon the backdrop of the open city. His blonde hair shone bright in contrast to the alley.

He kicked at a metal pipe on the wall, dislodging it from the rusted bolts that held it in place.

He pulled it free... and he wielded it as if it were a sword.

Interesting.

Did he think himself some kind of hero? His praises sung in myth and legend?

Tyvan had a colourful history with those freaks.

He stood tall, turning his body to face the boy.

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“I advise you to leave,” he said.” That is... if you value your ability to walk.”

“Oh, I can do more than walk,” the boy said.

He sprinted forward.

Fast.

--faster than could be reasonably expected with respect to his muscular build.

The boy screamed a throaty battlecry, dragging his pipe against the bricks and leaving a trail of sparks.

But why? That made his attacking direction transparent and predictable.

Tyvan held still for a moment.

Then, he dashed forward.

Straight kick.

Precise, to the tip of the chin.

The boy’s face changed in that instant.

--his bravado, lost to the winds.

--his eyes marked with fear and confusion.

It looked like it was the first time he’d taken a real strike.

“Welcome to the real world, Hero.”

Tyvan kindly introduced the side of the boy’s head to the alley wall.

Innocence and youth was not enough to overcome superior reach and strength.

A simpe hyperextension of their wrist found them disarmed, the pipe clanging noisily on the asphalt.

“Who even are you?!” the boy sobbed.

How asinine.

What use were questions in the thick of a battlefield? The altercation was no honourable duel. It was the simple removal of an unwelcome witness to a murder.

Tyvan brought his rear leg back. Then, he powered his knee into the boy’s kidney, forcing a low, pained breath out of their lungs. They remained silent even as he dragged their face across the rough brick facade.

Ah. And he still had a threat to make a reality.

He grabbed hold of the boy’s conveniently long hair, tossing them aside into a poetically appropriate pile of rubbish.

Then he drove a crushing stomp into his ankle.

Once, twice. Thrice.

The salt from the would-be hero’s tears certainly stung the torn skin on his face.

His sorrowful whimpers did much to alleviate Tyvan’s mood.

It was a waste to kill off a warrior of the younger generation. But teaching one a valuable lesson-- that was just and honorable.

Such was Tyvan’s glorious benevolence.

Once he fed the boy a Memory Erasure pill, his mind would forget... but his body would remember.

But that pill... Tyvan only had one, and there was no guarantee that Merlin could supply another in any reasonable time frame.

Comparatively... he had fifteen rounds in his pistol magazine and one in the chamber.

The correct thing to do was to kill them both. The pill was untested and likely lacked the efficacy of a proper ⌈Mindwipe⌋ spell cast by an ⟦Eraser⟧. Conversely, murder had a well-proven history of effectiveness.

Yet, either option carried a degree of risk. Archangel was Tyvan’s base of operations... and any intervention by the humans’ law enforcement agencies would cost a harrowing amount of time and resources.

He sighed and shook his head. Certain things were far simpler in his previous world.

A pulse of danger rocked Tyvan’s senses.

He took a healthy step backward, activating his ⌈Time Lock⌋ spell.

The girl... Shay-- she had returned to her feet.

Her eyes were aglow with mana-light--

The pipe...

She was holding the pipe, outlined in a dim, golden hue.

Magic.

The amount she could infuse was still limited by her human physique, but the fact that she could willfully manipulate mana introduced a series of dangerous variables.

Had she reached a flow state catalyzed by extreme stress?

Or was she awakening with purpose, armed with otherworldly knowledge?

What shape or form did her weapon enchantment have? Could she draw power from an outside source?

Her companion moved with a surprising amount of speed. If she could do similar...

If he reached for his pistol, he risked being struck-- and a strike to the head would fell him as would a regular human.

Tyvan had to kill her, that much was certain.

--but to kill a child with his bare hands?

At so intimate a distance?

To strangle her-- to watch her eyes redden and bulge, to feel her life force drain away as she clawed desperately at his arms.

It was a transgression enacted by villains, and only the most heartless and reprehensible of.

He hadn’t been reborn to become a child killer.

--regardless of his murderous reputation...

...in his last world. In the present. And in the next...

It was not a decision he could make lightly.

Too many seconds passed. The duration of ⌈Time Lock⌋ expired, forcing Tyvan to act.

He glared into Shay’s eyes... daring her to make the first move... wallowing in self-hatred for his hesitation.

She swung her weapon.

Tyvan grabbed her throat, lifting her up against the wall.

She struggled to breathe.

Her weak and pitiful hands poked and pried at his fingers in vain.

Tyvan narrowed his eyes.

The pipe... she had thrown it.

The boy behind him collapsed to the ground, struck... in the head?

Why? Another question, still...

Even if the cripple had harmful intentions, he was in no condition to pose a meaningful threat.

“C... commander,” the girl gasped.

No.

No, no... no...

Tyvan released her immediately. She fell onto his chest, coughing and gasping for breath.

The girl... she knew him.

But everyone he’d left behind...

Every single human, creature, and winged beast... everyone that knew him by that title was dead.

Killed in service.

Taken by time.

Either way, the wars they took part in had long ended.

Merlin was right.

The girl-- whoever she was... she was a reincarnator who retained her memories.

She was dangerous.

She had to die.

--again...

Even after the completion of her honourable service...

Why... had she... returned?

And why were the fates so determined to torment him?

He shoved the girl to the ground, reaching into his coat for his pistol.

The only gods-damned reason he was present... was to dispatch a threat-- to kill the child kneeling at his feet.

It mattered not her age-- not her form... not her gross and insulting inability to defend herself.

It mattered not her identity, past or present...

“C-commander,” the pitiful girl mewled.

She looked up, her face covered in tears even more pathetic than she.

“You’re safe,” she said.

Tyvan grit his teeth.

--and he moved his hand from his pistol grip to his inner coat pocket.