I'm in another world, and I start out transformed into Lancelot.

It wasn't through hearing, but rather like the slightest vibration, that it reached Euphemia's heart directly.

This inhuman silence seemed to possess a magical power, instantly freezing all the gasps and pleas for help that were escaping Yuffie's throat.

All that remained in the world was that hovering finger, slender and graceful, encased in light armor!

Her voice rang out, her tone like the gentlest whisper by a fireplace on a winter night, carrying a kind of…a guardian about to embark on a long journey making a promise to return home:

"...I'll be back soon." As the last syllable faded, the tone abruptly shifted.

A gentle tone mingled with a touch of the mischievousness and intimacy unique to fairies: "Don't worry... my Euphemia."

"Mine"—this possessive term!

The two light words, like the finest spider silk, instantly entangled Yuffie's heart, gentle yet impossible to break free from.

Echoing the fervent vows made in the darkness of yesterday's bed, an invisible protective pact is formed.

The young princess blushed instantly, and the fairy knight smiled with satisfaction.

She turned around, her lake-blue figure frozen in the halo of light on the threshold, fading, becoming transparent, and disappearing without warning, like frost melting in the morning light.

There was no explosion or light effects.

The morning light passed through the spot where she melted away, leaving only a very brief, human-shaped, transparent ripple in place.

Immediately, the ripple, like a drop of water thrown into a deep pool, vanished completely in the pure sunlight and air.

It's like it never existed.

Only the faint, lingering sound of a chime remained in the air, as if carrying the scent of shattered ice and snow.

And... the "shh—" branded in Yuffie's heart from afar.

And a name she had never heard before, an almost intimate one: "My Euphemia".

The gentle poison continues to burn silently, bearing the marks of ice and fire left by the departed knight.

The sun shines brightly outside the window as always. Birds chirp and students play.

No one knows what will happen after this silent farewell.

A "lake-blue thin blade" that has been tempered to the extreme has already pierced through the void and is aimed at the darkest core of Kyoto!

Go and carry out a top-secret mission called "Buying Oranges"!

Chapter 37: The Scene with the Witch (Part 1)

Inside Zero's office.

The afternoon sun streamed through the huge floor-to-ceiling windows, lazily spreading across the expensive carpet.

The air was filled with the lingering warmth of black tea, and a kind of... solidified, inorganic tranquility, like that of a specimen room.

"despair."

A cold, pure drop of water, like morning dew, fell precisely from the void.

It hit the center of the smooth mahogany floor, instantly creating a small, almost invisible micro-mark.

What followed was not a sound of something breaking through the air, but a peculiar "hum-click" sound.

Between the ripples of light in the space—

A slender figure, suspended in mid-air by a semi-transparent, lake-blue energy field, appeared silently and without warning in the center of the office.

Jeremiah Goldbald – the modified “Orange” – is like a specimen pinned to an absolute static force field.

He wore the uniform dark gray of Schneizel's personal troops, the silver eagle crest on his shoulder insignia cold and glaring.

The uniform was intact, with no tears or stains visible, and the signs of alteration were perfectly concealed beneath the clothing.

Only a few areas that could not be completely covered revealed the results of the modifications made later.

The entire place exuded a cold, gritty smell, like a mixture of machine oil and disinfectant – the smell of "newly manufactured machinery."

The "porter" who created this scene—the fairy knight Lancelot—is himself more like a flawless work of art.

The light, lake-blue armor was not stained with blood; instead, it gleamed with a cold, metallic sheen, as if it had just been brushed by extremely low-temperature frost.

The air around her was several degrees cooler than room temperature, except for a few freshly peeled seeds clinging to the sharp, crescent-shaped tips of her shoes...

The alloy fragments, still glowing with a faint blue electric current, looked like trophies "rubbed" off a high-energy shield.

She completely ignored the "perfectly modified weapon" behind her, which was in a state of forced hibernation (or perhaps frozen?).

Those vertical pupils, gleaming with molten gold, were like two probes tempered by a thousand-year-old icy spring.

It precisely and coldly traversed the entire space, locking onto the "Zero" reclining on the sofa.

On the sofa sat a person wearing Zero's signature black uniform and that enigmatic mask.

His posture, however, was as relaxed as a piece of melted butter.

One leg was bent and rested on the sofa armrest, the black leather boot swinging lazily; the other leg was stretched out, the toe of the boot tapping idly on the expensive thick plush carpet.

One elbow rested casually on the backrest, and the golden cheese strands pinched between his fingers almost reached the ground.

A slice of pizza bearing the familiar Pizzahut logo is being fed into the lips and teeth beneath the mask.

The room was filled with the inexplicably irritating, sticky smacking sounds of him and her chewing cheese.

Faced with the modified weapon that appeared silently in the center of the room, hovering like a frozen specimen, and the fairy knight who suddenly descended with an icy and sharp aura.

"Zero" merely tilted his head very slowly, with a hint of annoyance at being disturbed from his peaceful moment.

The gaze behind the mask's eyeholes casually swept over Melusin and Jeremiah behind her before returning to the pizza in her hand.

There was no surprise, no wariness, not even the slightest ripple.

Lancelot parted his red lips slightly.

It wasn't a rebuke, nor a question; it was simply a flat, absolutely precise statement, like declaring a physical law.

“CC..”

Two words. They seemed etched into the air like ice crystals.

It clearly, accurately, and definitively peeled away the disguise of the Zero mask, pointing directly to the witch's true nature beneath, a witch who had endured for millennia and was now numb to everything.

"Zero" on the sofa paused for an extremely subtle moment—the knuckles of his fingers holding the pizza clicked for a very brief instant.

But that stiffness melted away as quickly as the first snow, sinking into a deeper "lazy quagmire".

The witch CC—without even a haste—tucked the remaining long, cheesy pizza slice under her mask, a satisfied, muffled hum escaping her throat.

Then, in a tone so calm and almost shameless as to discuss whether the sweetness level was satisfactory that it was discussed today.

With a slight annoyance at being interrupted from eating, he confirmed through the comical mask:

"...It's already signed for so quickly?" She lazily shifted to a more comfortable support.

Lancelot's molten gold vertical pupils swept over the languid witch on the sofa, seemingly unsurprised by her presence.

The fairy knight's response was concise and cold, like slamming a piece of cold iron onto a table:

"Ah."

“Since you’re here,” she said calmly, shifting her gaze away from CC’s face, as if CC’s value lay solely in her presence.

"I'm leaving it to you." The tone carried an air of entrusting something to someone who was no longer in use.

The mission has been handed over, and this place has nothing to do with her anymore.

CC let out a soft hum, somewhere between a sneer and a sigh, that was unclear in meaning.

She slowly brushed the pizza crumbs off her fingertips and stood up from the luxurious sofa.

Those bewitching golden eyes, seemingly containing a thousand years of history, locked onto the fairy knight who was about to leave, with a hint of amusement.

"Hmph~" The hum was drawn out, carrying an indescribable, melodious laziness that transcended a thousand years.

"Really... just like the contractors, they're always looking for convenience and love to bother others~"

She casually passed on that person's traits to Melusin, her tone full of worldly-wise banter.

As she spoke, she had already walked up to Meluxin. The two were so close that they could feel the distinct auras around each other—one was the cold frost, and the other was the warm, creamy cheese.

Suddenly—CC extended a long, slender, and pale finger without warning.

The fingertips did not touch the skin, but rather carried an almost flirtatious provocation and curiosity.

With the tip of my fingernail, I made an extremely light yet precise tap on the top edge of the streamlined, dark blue soft nail of the Meloshen breastplate—"tap."

The sound was soft, yet it was like striking the first crack on an absolutely still ice surface.

Chapter 38: The Scene with the Witch (Part Two)

“Hey…” CC’s lips were very close to the Fairy Knight’s.

His voice was low, soft, and seductive, as if he were sharing an ancient and dangerous secret.

"Since you're asking me to do it myself... at least let me know... who asked me to do it?"

Her bewitching golden eyes gleamed with a deep light. "Tell me your name? How about it?"

The air seemed to freeze in an instant.

In that "light and thin" moment, Melusin's body took an extremely small and stiff half-step back.

A brief pause, like a precision instrument suddenly encountering interference from a non-programmed command.

Beneath the mask, his molten gold vertical pupils suddenly narrowed, and the elegant, cold line between his brows furrowed in extreme displeasure.

This is not fear, but a physiological rejection mixed with shock and instinctive disgust when the noblest bloodline is frivolously desecrated!

The ice crystals on the surface of the lake-blue armor seemed to tremble almost imperceptibly from the sudden touch.

This aloof knightly demeanor froze for less than half a second.

Immediately afterwards—*ss*

Like the soft sound of ice melting under the midday sun.

The edges of the lake-blue figure began to decompose, blur, and precipitate countless spiritual particles emitting extremely faint blue light at a speed visible to the naked eye.

"Lancelot..."

A clear, pure voice, yet intermittent due to the dissipation of spiritual particles, rang out.

It is not the complete name, but merely the name "Holy Lance" that carries supreme glory.

The last note hadn't truly faded yet.

Whoosh—that elegant body, clad in light lake-blue armor, completely disintegrated into a handful of dazzling yet fleeting blue stardust.

The spiritual particles silently diffused, swirled, and finally completely merged into the air and sunlight of the office.

It's like it never happened.

Only the area of ​​the breastplate that CC had just touched with her fingertip, on that patch of dark blue soft armor.

It left behind an extremely tiny, almost invisible, subtle arc-shaped indentation that only becomes visible when light is refracted at a specific angle.

Only the Millennium Witch remained in the room, along with the modified weapon on the floor, which was forcibly frozen and exuded an inhuman aura.

And... the icy chill that lingered in the air had not yet dissipated, yet the air was eerily silent and lifeless, devoid of its owner.

CC's gaze fell on the spot where Melosin had disappeared, then slowly moved to her fingertips.

With a thoughtful expression, she slowly brought the finger that had touched her breastplate to her bright red lips, a hint of an indescribable smile on her face.

“Tsk... Lancelot…” she repeated the newly acquired name softly, her voice filled with the delight of discovering a new toy.

"...He's quite the shy one, isn't he?"

Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

At night, the office was dimly lit, with only the neon lights of the city outside the huge floor-to-ceiling windows illuminating the silhouette of Jeremiah kneeling on one knee.

The anti-Geass field of the modified body rippled faintly in this space like a silent sigh.