A father's resolve

"Leiger!" Andrew leaps towards the doctor, alarming the knights into action but it's Leiger who defends himself by swinging his cane at the oncoming assailant.

Drew sacrifices his left arm to block Leiger's cane and with his right hand, he grabs the cane with the intention of driving it into the doctor's body to kill him.

However, his attempt fails as a pair knights rush in to pin him down. To their surprise, it's taking both of them to hold Drew down to the floor as his body violently writhes to escape their hold.

Verschlingen mon ennemi in Eutychianes feu, machen leur einreich-

"Cast my foes in Eutychianes flames, bring them to he -Hmph!?"

Leiger puts his gloved hand against Andrew's mouth, stopping him from finishing his incantation. A sigh of relief comes over the two knights and because of that, the knight holding Andrew's right arm relaxes his grip on it, and like a springloaded trap, Andrew's right arm slips out of the knight's grasp and seizes Leiger's left shoulder.

Just from Andrew's heated stare at him, Leiger can see that the young man still has a trump card up his sleeve, quite literally in fact. The doctor also realizes that Andrew might be contemplating his choices and so the doctor decides to help Drew with his choice.

"Do you think whatever you have will be worth the two casualties here?" Leiger offhandedly reminds Drew that even if his current body were to die here, his soul would only move to a new one.

A sense of clarity comes back to Drew and he begins to weigh on his options, but it is clear to him that Leiger has a point so he lets go of the doctor's shoulder. Drew's right arm then drops like a sack of bricks and he stops resisting.

The doctor dusts off the wrinkles on the left shoulder of his coat before getting up. He has nothing else to say to Drew so he turns around and prepares to leave in courteous silence, but he stops as he hears Andrew snicker.

"I'm not the one you should be asking that question. You know about the demon that rampaged here yesterday, right?" With a cocky grin on his face, Andrew attempts to strike fear not just in Leiger but to the knights holding him down.

It works on the knights as Andrew can feel their grip on him tremble while he sees the looks in their eyes, a mix of disbelief and fear.

However, it seems to have a completely inverse effect on Leiger.

"Come what may! My faith will forever be stronger than any witch, demon, or any form of evil that the goddess Arthesia will throw at me as a test!

The same should be said for the knights of Aspen! Are you all afraid because of a demon? It is your -nay, OUR duty to remove malevolence from this world for the goddess to descend back down upon us and grace us for our hardship!

Is it not for that reason that you all took the blade and became knights!? I sense a lack of faith but, fret not my agnostic brothers, I will battle the demon with Sir Sigmund." Leiger finishes his rousing speech with a loud thud of his cane against the wooden floor.

His sermon does ease the rattling nerves of the knights as the mention of Sigmund's name gives them hope of defeating the she-devil.

Andrew doesn't have a full grasp of Lucifia's strength as he only fought her in her feral and weakened state, and he barely managed to survive that. He wonders just how strong Lucifia is, and he hopes that she's stronger than Sigmund.

'I'm counting on you, Lu.'

…

Aranea finishes preparing herself to chase after and look for Andrew in the city, but just as she makes it to the front door, Lucifia suddenly appears behind her and grabs her wrist to keep her from leaving.

Before the timid girl could say a word and before Finny could start running his foul mouth, Melissa runs down the stairs with her rifle in her embrace. Confused, Aranea keeps silent while glancing at Melissa who's quietly running into the living room and peeking through the window to look outside. Melissa's grip on her rifle tightens and just that alone is enough for Aranea to understand that something bad is happening.

Lu tries to pull Aranea away from the door for some reason, a reason that's made to clear to her when she hears Hagurd's voice just outside the door. He's talking to someone outside.

"What're you guys doing here? Didn't I forbid you all from coming to the forest?" Hagurd says authoritatively giving Aranea an idea of what's going on outside.

Aranea only ever hears Hagurd's commanding voice towards his fellow knights and in some cases to her. The timid girl plants her feet at the entrance of the door, refusing to move and listen to Lu.

"We're under new orders pops. The capital's coming here and they told us to hunt down any witch we come across, so we figured we'd start with her," one of the knights says getting onto Hagurd's nerves because of how malicious they sound. The rude knight's name is Kirev.

But as angry as he is towards the 5 knights in front of him, Hagurd is also angry at himself. He knows that a day like this would eventually happen and that it's only his authority keeping the entire city from persecuting Aranea.

"How about this captain, if you move outta the way we'll tell that you changed your mind about that witch and that you helped us in capturing her. Sound good right?" A different knight tries to negotiate with Hagurd while putting his best merchant's smile.

"You want me to just let you take Aranea and hang her at the gallows? Is that right, Tidge?" Hagurd confirms as he crosses his arms.

"Yes, and captain you should know that you're also going to be hanged for being a witch's accomplice. I would really hate to see such a man like yourself hang, so-"

"Draw your swords," Hagurd says in his imposing voice as his breathing becomes clear to see from the cold.

"P, -Pardon?" Tidge tilts his head as the rest of the knights scowls at Hagurd.

Hagurd's face darkens as he stares down the knights before him. He tears the coat-of-arms on his leather pauldron and throws it down to the white ground in front of the knights.

"I won't repeat myself, Tidge. If you want to drag my daughter out of this house and kill her, you're going to have to go through my dead body." Hagurd resolves himself as he draws his sword which causes a choral of sword draws as the knights prepare to fight him.

"Hah! Pops, maybe you don't quite understand your situation here! We completely outnumber you!" Kirev says as he charges towards Hagurd but in a blink of an eye, the rude knight sees himself staring at a fist that connects to his face.

As Kirev reels back from the pain, his nose broken and splattered with blood, Hagurd grabs and throws him to a knight who's running up towards him.

"What're you doing?! We can just outnumber him!" Tidge lectures Kirev as he and the rest of the knights try to surround Hagurd, who sees this tactic coming from a mile away.

He flashes a grin as all 5 knights surround him.

"Kirev, Tidge, Wydin, Leros, and Ilden," He says the name of the knights that surround him and for some reason that alarms them.

The knights believed that their captain didn't even know their names, that's especially what Kirev thinks as he hates how Hagurd has been pushing his authority around to protect a witch.

"C, -Captain?" Ilden chimes in wanting to ask why Hagurd mentioned their names.

"It's nothing. I just wanted to remember your names, after all, I'm going to be writing your tombstones," Hagurd says darkly as he thrusts his sword at Ilden but Leros hits it away leaving his sword arm open which Hagurd grabs.

Pulling Leros close, Hagurd twists his arm into dropping his blade and kicking Leros towards the hotheaded Kirev who Hagurd sees charging at him.

Thinking that his back is open, both Tidge and Wydin leap in to attack, but to their surprise, they hear a gunshot and Wydin finds his arming sword broken in half.

Wydin's legs begin to tremble as he traces where the marksman is by the sound of the gunshot and he sees Melissa inside the house with her rifle trained at the fight. Her hawk-like glare pierces through the armor Wydin is wearing.

"You better make this quick old man, I only had that one bullet," Melissa quietly mumbles to herself. She hopes not to regret using her last bullet as a warning shot to scare the knights.

Tidge is the only one who seems to be unfazed by the presence of a firearm, he still charges towards Hagurd with his rapier pointing deadly at his target's back.

As if he has eyes behind his back, Hagurd grabs a hold of Tidge's rapier and quickly brings his sword down on its blade, snapping the rapier in two.

"If you're going to come at me from behind, learn to hide your bloodlust. I could feel it from a mile away," Hagurd lectures the two-faced Tidge.

To that, the two-faced knight smiles his merchant grin and Hagurd is too late to realize Kirev's attack that scores his back splattering blood that dyes the snow on the ground.

Hagurd falls to one knee in front of Tidge who grabs his captain's head and knees Hagurd in the face, breaking his nose.

"Hah! That felt great! I know captain, I know! You always teach us about this and that but you know, it really pisses me off when you act so high and mighty all the time!" Tidge rants as he shakes Hagurd's head around while his nose bleeds.

"I want to torture you a bit more but I don't wanna give you the chance to get out of this." Tidge pulls Hagurd's head down to reveal his neck. "Do it Kirev."

"Hngh- I always hated your guts Tidge. You're lucky I hate the captain's guts even more though!" Kirev raises his sword and without a moment's hesitation he swings it down.

However, before Kirev's blade could even connect to a hair on Hagurd's neck, the front door of the manor slams right into him. The door splinters into pieces while Kirev ragdolls across the snowy ground.

Tidge recoils from the sudden interference and shoots a glare towards the manor where he momentarily sees Aranea on her knees, tears streaming down her face.

"Geez, I don't like stealing someone else's spotlight, but I can't have you dying on me. Not after that," Lu says standing in front of Hagurd, completely ignoring Tidge and the rest of the knights.

Her sudden appearance that did not disturb the snow on the ground causes all the knights to become paralyzed with fear, more so when they see her dark blue colors blending with the wintry landscape.

"Y, -You are- Ghnh!?" Tidge finds himself with Lu's tail strangling him in the neck and holding him off the ground. The she-devil doesn't even look the two-faced knight in the eye since she's deep in thought.

Lu then puts her hand on Hagurd's shoulder.

Transfer le sien blessure in maine

"Transfer"

Almost instantly the fatal wound on Hagurd's back disappears and reappears on Lu. The she-demon winces not from the large wound on her back but instead from feeling her nose break and bleed.

"Guhrk- I didn't think it would annoy me to have my nose busted, but it is really irritating. Here, find out for yourself~" with a grin on her face, Lu brings Tidge close and grabs his face with her clawed hand.

Transfer ma blessure in lui

"Transfer~"

Lu's wounds heal but Tidge finds his back tearing open in the exact shape of the injury Kirev made on Hagurd's back. The two-face knight writhes in agony as he hasn't felt pain just appear like that on his body. He couldn't bellow out the pain as Lu holds his mouth shut, it feels as though his cheeks are about to burst like a balloon from how much air he's trying to push out.

Even though it's cold and snowing, Tidge is sweating.

"Y, -You aren't going to get away with this, demon!" Ilden shouts as he and the rest of the knights back up to where the unconscious Kirev is. Both Wydin and Leros lift the unconscious knight and they see him covered in scratches from the splinters.

"Yeah~ Tell your knight friends about this place, tell them well that I, Lucifia Beleth, am guarding this manor.

Here, I'll even give you guys a good letter~!" Lu snaps her head towards the now hyperventilating Tidge. She smiles widely, showing her serrated teeth which gives Tidge a clear idea of what letter Lu has in mind.

An old fashioned letter, a declaration of war.

Lu's tail begins to tightly squeeze Tidge's neck and that causes him to panic, his hands desperately clawing at Lu's bony tail which only serves to mutilate his fingers, but he would rather shred his fingers to the bone than what Lu has in store for him. Hagurd wants to put a stop to what Lu's trying to do, but there's no compromise to be had with Lu as he sees the look on her eyes.

Lu is staring at a corpse.

Without using the sharp bladed-end of her tail, Lu brutally saws Tidge's head off his shoulders. Like a sack of potatoes, Tidge's headless body falls heavy to the snowy ground with blood spurting from the neck.

The she-devil then throws Tidge's head towards Ilden and he sees the permanent look of agony the two-faced knight had as Lu tore his head off. Tidge's eyes were rolled up and his mouth forever stuck gasping for air.

"You and anyone else who comes here with the intent of persecution will meet the same end as your friend, you understand~?" Lu says pointing her bloody finger at Ilden while she still has her massive Cheshire cat grin.