Viola Ordina did not tie back her hair. She swung her sword with her jet-black hair hanging loose.

Violet tied her hair into a single ponytail. With her snow-white hair tied back, she played the keys.

Najin looked at Violet standing before him—or perhaps Viola Ordina. Her hair was not all one color. Half black and half snow-white, it was tied into a single ponytail as she held her sword.

“Well, does it really matter which?”

Either was fine. She shrugged as though to say it was a trivial matter. Najin nodded in understanding.

“I'll take the left.”

“I'll take the right.”

There was no need for a lengthy discussion. Najin turned at an angle toward Ladon's half-severed left wing, while Viola gripped her sword, her gaze fixed on the right.

A brief silence fell.

As though breaking that silence, the blue sky rippled. Already a vivid blue, it had now deepened another shade. The moment a single raindrop fell from the sky rippling like a lake, Merlin's spell was complete.

SHHHHHHH!

Torrential rain poured down. It froze with a crack the moment it touched Ladon. Drops seeping into the wounds Najin had carved froze and forced them wider. Ice reddened with blood bloomed across Ladon's body.

ROOOOOAR!

As Ladon's agonized screams echoed, Najin and Viola kicked off the ground.

Dawnstar, composed of four stars.

The Star of Separation, composed of six.

The two constellations shone in their own colors.

2.

Najin and Viola were swordsmen. Both knew how to cut what could not be cut by ordinary means, and they possessed not merely the knowledge, but the skill to put it into practice.

Najin wielded the Sword of Unfolding Return he had learned from the Helmeted Knight; Viola wielded sword aura resembling broken glass.

While Merlin's magic held Ladon in place, they relentlessly targeted his wings. Taking away a dragon's wings was the most orthodox way to hunt one.

SPLAAASH!

Blood sprayed. The amount was insignificant compared to Ladon's size, but bringing down something enormous always began with its smaller parts.

CRACK!

Whenever Viola and Najin slashed wounds into the wings, Merlin forced those wounds wider. The frozen wounds would not close, rendering Ladon's vaunted regeneration useless. Ladon thrashed with hideous cries, but they were not slow enough to be caught by the sluggish movements of a half-frozen dragon.

They stripped away scales, drove their swords in to widen wounds, and sawed through bone and muscle.

When Ladon's tattered wings drooped, neither missed the opening. Najin slipped in and thrust his sword into the left wing. Almost simultaneously, Viola swept in from the right and swung her sword. Their strikes were completed at nearly the same instant.

On one side, sword aura resembling a constellation flashed; on the other, sword aura reminiscent of a window shattered into fragments.

The left wing was severed with a tearing crack.

The right wing shattered with the crash of breaking glass.

Crimson blood sprayed. Amid blood spurting like a fountain, Ladon's wings fell with a heavy boom. As both wings struck the ground, Ladon screamed in agony.

“Now.”

And then—

“Now, Merlin.”

The iceberg began to collapse.

With a rumbling crash, the iceberg supporting Viola, Najin, and Ladon crumbled. Merlin had brought it down, for they no longer needed such a foothold.

Without his wings, Ladon could not fly. He could no longer escape a fall. The dragon once called the master of the sky had lost his wings and been reduced to a mere beast.

The iceberg broke apart and collapsed.

Ladon fell from hundreds of meters in the air. Watching him plummet, Viola burst into laughter.

That dragon she had feared so deeply. That monster she had thought would torment her forever.

Watching him fall toward the earth filled Viola with exhilaration. She saw Ladon's eyes waver. She saw fear enter the beast's yellow eyes. It seemed he was indeed afraid of falling.

But Viola was not.

She was falling too, yet she felt no fear. She had already experienced countless falls. Having fallen again and again, she found this situation familiar rather than frightening.

And that familiarity allowed Viola to take a step forward.

She kicked off a falling chunk of the iceberg and accelerated. Leaping from one fragment to the next, she closed in on Ladon. Rather than resist the fall, she simply accepted it. She accepted gravity not as something terrifying dragging her down, but as a hand urging her forward.

KABOOOOOM!

Ladon hit the ground first. As the enormous dragon landed, the earth shook as though struck by an earthquake. Dust rose high into the sky, and a deafening crash rang out like an ammunition store full of bombs exploding.

Then, amid it all, came the tap of a foot.

Viola kicked off the last slab of ice and leaped. Without slowing in the slightest, she swung her sword at the fallen Ladon—as though wielding a bludgeon rather than a blade.

CRACK.

Viola smashed into Ladon's spine. His back caved in, and cracks raced across it with the crash of shattering glass. Jets of blood shot up, and stripped scales flew high into the sky.

Ladon convulsed violently. His body, just beginning to recover from the impact of the fall, seized up.

“Najin!”

Calling out, Viola put distance between herself and Ladon. She leaped away and looked up at the sky.

Stars were shining.

Challenge, Breakthrough, Indomitable, and...

Dragonslaying.

The stars shone not in the night sky, but in a sword held by a human.

“...”

Najin, poised upside down on a falling fragment of ice, kicked off it. With a bang, the ice shattered beneath the force of his push. Amid swirling snow dust, he shot toward Ladon like a single meteor.

First Horn.

Viola had stripped away the scales, exposing Ladon's spine. Najin swung his sword at the thick bone.

Triumphant Return.

The strike, imbued with the starlight of dragonslaying, cleaved Ladon in two.

3.

The sword strike tore through flesh and muscle and split the spine.

As though cleaving Ladon in two were not enough, it carved a single line into the ground with a rending crack. Blood poured from the severed surfaces as Ladon let out his final groan.

In his final moments, Ladon felt fear. Fear that he would not revive with time, but meet an eternal death. The dragon, who should have been far removed from death, groaned in terror as it came right before his eyes.

GROOOOOAN...

At some point, the lingering groan abruptly stopped. Ladon met his death.

“Hah, haah...”

Still holding the posture of his sword swing atop Ladon's back, Najin panted. His breathing was ragged. The backlash of imitating transcendence with a body that had not yet attained it assailed him. He pitched forward and fell off the dragon.

Viola caught him as he fell.

“Oh my, oh my!”

She cried out in delight, hugging Najin. Bouncing up and down on the spot, she beamed.

“We really did it. Really! How did you kill an undying dragon? How on earth did you do it? Really...”

“Oh!” Belatedly releasing Najin, Viola stepped back and fussed with her hair. She averted her eyes slightly, looking embarrassed.

“...”

Turning her gaze aside, Viola inadvertently met Merlin's eyes. Merlin was glaring at her, eyes wide, frozen with both arms outstretched to catch the falling Najin.

An unwavering stare.

It was the resentful gaze of a guide whose role had been stolen. Finding it terribly uncomfortable, Viola turned away again.

“Didn't I tell you? I'm confident when it comes to killing dragons.”

Najin spoke as he staggered and steadied himself.

“How was that?”

“Do you really need to ask?”

Viola laughed in disbelief.

How was that? Did he truly not know? It had been magnificent. Even that word could not begin to express it. Embarrassing words rose to Viola's throat, but she could not bring herself to say them, and burst into laughter instead.

“Truly.”

Now that the nightmare that had tormented her for so long was gone, Viola could smile more brightly than ever.

“Truly, Najin. Thank you so—”

It was just as Viola was about to thank him that she sensed something was wrong.

'The nightmare that had tormented me for so long.'

The unease came the moment she thought of those words. She had faced Ladon for sixty-seven years, yet she felt as though she had done so for far longer—more than ten times as long.

Ladon's death. The resolution of her lingering regrets. And a turning point.

Suddenly, she realized.

This was a dream.

And she realized she had repeated this dream for hundreds of years.

Memories she had forgotten every month surged over her like waves. The repeated dreams flashed before her eyes like her life passing before her. Viola's radiant smile froze.

Her face twisted, her eyes wavered, and her breathing faltered...

“Ah...”

Viola Ordina sighed.

Violet smiled bitterly.

“I... see.”

As Viola began to awaken from the dream, her eyes looked vaguely hazy.

“So that's what happened.”

But that lasted only a moment.

Viola closed her eyes and let out a long breath. After slowly taking a deep breath, she opened them again, smiling. It was a smile of peace and release.

“Well, thinking about it, it was too much like a fairy tale. A hero appearing just in time to save me when I'd been pushed to my limit? Reality would never be like that.”

Violet sighed.

“What a shame,” she murmured, lowering her head. When she raised it again, she looked as though she might cry at any moment.

“... You...”

“It's all right. Really, it's all right. Truly.”

Violet shook her head. Then she let out one breath after another and rubbed the corners of her eyes with her sleeve.

“You know, Najin?”

“Yes, Violet?”

“What's this? You're calling me Violet because the hero has retired now? I like that. Anyway, Najin...”

Violet turned to Najin.

“Do you like being out in the rain?”

The moment she said it, rain suddenly poured down with a rushing hiss. It was not rain made by Merlin. To Violet, rain had always been a refuge, and its sound a song that soothed her heart.

The rain fell because she wished for that refuge.

With Ladon gone, this dream belonged entirely to Violet.

“Well, I don't dislike it.”

Watching her faint smile, as though she might disappear at any moment, Najin nodded.

“Then shall we walk for a while?”

Violet forced a smile.

“There's so much I want to tell you.”