Iris Brenthall stood barefoot atop the ruins of a fallen airship, her crimson hair disheveled and glinting faintly in the light of burning mana shells. Her fists were wrapped in black combat cloth soaked through with blood—none of it hers. Around her drifted the faint shimmer of red butterflies, their wings iridescent and trembling with venomous mana. They fluttered between corpses and drifting embers, feeding on the energy left behind by dying mages.

Below her, dozens of Central-Southern Alliance knights advanced through the fog, shields raised, spells gleaming faintly in formation. Their commander shouted orders, his voice cutting through the roar of battle.

"She's alone! Bring her down before she calls the Northern forces!"

Alone.

Iris smiled faintly. Her lips bled, but her smile was sharp.

She leapt.

The ground cratered beneath her as mana surged through her body. She descended like a falling star, her fists striking the earth with enough force to send a shockwave rippling through the dirt. Soldiers stumbled, losing formation. Iris was already there among them—her movements fluid, almost soundless.

A knight lunged; she twisted aside, caught his sword arm, and crushed his wrist with a sickening crack. Another swung from behind; she turned, pivoted on one heel, and drove her elbow through his chest plate.

Each motion was a dance—swift, deliberate, brutal.

The butterflies followed her. Wherever her fists landed, they bloomed from the air in a haze of red light, swarming over fallen men, spreading poison through armor seams and open wounds. Their dying cries blended with the low hum of mana in her veins.

Her mind was cold. Clear. The noise of war faded to a heartbeat.

She was back in that quiet house, years ago. The one she had left.

The one that never wanted her.

Her father's voice echoed faintly through the haze of memory.

"You'll ruin yourself chasing that boy's war."

Maybe she already had.

But even ruin could have purpose.

---

Across the plains, May Ashbourne stood on the wreckage of a scorched tank, her coat fluttering in the wind. Her face was half-hidden behind soot and sweat, eyes glinting beneath the scope lenses she wore around her neck. The reek of burning oil clung to her clothes.

She reloaded in silence—quick, precise—then spun both pistols in her hands. Her mana flowed down the barrels, turning their steel frames faintly red.

Below, the remnants of the Central artillery unit had regrouped. Their heavy cannons roared, scattering the Northern infantry.

May crouched low, took aim.

"Target distance, 600 meters," she murmured to herself. "Wind direction, east… three degrees."

The pistols fired.

Twin flashes tore through the air. The bullets weren't ordinary—they were infused with compressed mana, glowing faintly white as they screamed across the field. The first shot pierced the cannon's engine block, detonating the fuel chamber in a burst of blue fire. The second found the artillery commander's visor, dropping him before he could shout a command.

May exhaled, smoke curling from the pistols' barrels.

She moved again, dashing through trenches littered with bodies. Soldiers rushed her position—she shot one through the knee, then spun and fired at another's shoulder, each shot placed with surgical accuracy. When her magazines emptied, she flipped the pistols by their barrels, using them like clubs.

A knight charged her with a halberd; she ducked under the blade, drove a kick into his shin, then snapped his throat with the butt of her gun. The movement was so fluid it looked rehearsed.

Her coat was shredded, her breathing uneven—but she didn't stop. Every time her finger squeezed the trigger, she remembered their faces. Wolf. Ren. The friends they buried beneath smoke and silence.

And Noah.

The way he looked when he gave her the order to retreat—knowing full well she wouldn't.

"We all have our parts, May," he had said. "Yours is to see what others can't."

She did now.

She saw everything—the horror, the brilliance, the waste.

The sky above her flashed with blue lightning as a mana shell detonated overhead. She raised her arm to shield her face, grimacing as the shockwave knocked her to one knee.

"Still here…" she muttered. "Still got work to do."

---

Far across the field, Iris vaulted over the corpses of fallen knights, landing in a spray of dirt. Her hands trembled slightly; she'd been fighting nonstop for hours. But her eyes burned bright, the same crimson as the butterflies circling her head.

Her mana field flickered, then erupted outward in a red haze.

The air shimmered with heat and poison.

"Fall back!" shouted a Central captain. "Fall—"

He never finished. Iris was already in front of him. Her fist broke through his shield spell, splintering the mana barrier like glass. Her knuckles met his chest, caving the armor inward.

She stood still for a moment, staring down at his motionless form.

The butterflies landed on his armor, dissolving into smoke.

All around her, silence began to spread. The few remaining knights backed away, fear replacing fury. The storm of red wings thickened, glowing faintly as they circled her like an aura.

Then a Northern horn echoed in the distance. Reinforcements.

Iris exhaled slowly, blood dripping from her nose. "About time…"

She looked up toward the ridge where the smoke parted just enough to show the outline of another figure—May, standing amidst the wreckage, pistols lowered, eyes fixed on the horizon.

Two warriors on opposite ends of the inferno.

Two storms moving under the same sky.

The war didn't stop for them, but in that fleeting instant, the chaos stilled—

just enough for the world to remember the cost of what it demanded from its heroes.

---

When the wind shifted, it carried a sound that didn't belong to war—

a faint hum, like something breaking.

Iris turned her gaze to the west, where the sun was setting behind the black clouds. The air shimmered with mana again—blue, cold, and unnatural.

Another bombardment? Or perhaps something worse.

May reloaded and whispered under her breath, almost like a prayer.

"Hold on, everyone.

She looked up at the sky.

Just hold on…"