My Sister Is The Villainess

Now this is something that happened when I was in Realm of The Evil, sitting in the ruined church. I did not knew about this until much later. But going ahead in the story, this is one of the important events

The plain stretched flat and endless between two enormous hills, empty of trees, empty of roads, empty of anything resembling a witness.

On the western hill stood Sera Rhys.

On the eastern hill stood a man who called himself Zeke.

”You are late,” Sera called across the distance, her voice carrying easily over the empty plain. ”I have been standing here long enough to grow bored.”

Zeke’s mouth curved into something that was not quite a smile. ”Apologies, Miss Rhys. I was told you would be easy. I wanted to make sure I was not wasting my time on a job beneath me.”

”And what did you decide?”

”I decided,” he said, drawing five substitution charms from his coat, ”that I do not particularly care either way. Dead is dead, whether the fight was interesting or not.”

He hurled the charms into the air, scattering them at random, then snapped his fingers.

In the space between one heartbeat and the next, he vanished from the hilltop entirely.

Sera’s eyes tracked the space where he had been standing, and found nothing there at all. A moment later, faint pressure prickled at the edge of her senses somewhere to her left, gone again before she could properly locate it.

’A coward’s tactic,’ she thought, though even as the thought formed she recognized the unfairness of it. It was not cowardice. It was simply efficient, and efficiency did not care whether it looked honorable.

”Come out and fight properly,” she called, sword rising. ”Or are you too much of a bitch to hold still?”

His laughter came from somewhere behind her, already gone before she could turn toward it. ”Charming mouth for a noble daughter.”

”You would be surprised what noble daughters learn to say when nobody important is listening.”

Her grip tightened around the hilt of her sword. If he would not stay still long enough to be seen properly, then she would make sure he could not hide at all.

Light poured from the blade, blinding and absolute, spilling outward across the plain in a wave bright enough to have dropped an ordinary man to his knees. Zeke did not so much as flinch. The light was never meant to blind him. It was meant to force him to react, to reveal, for one fraction of a second, exactly where his attention had been focused.

That fraction was enough.

He reappeared fifty feet from where he had vanished, hovering now, a full thousand feet above the plain below, silver mist curling up from his outstretched palm as a broadsword took shape within his grip. Sera finally saw him properly for the first time since the fight had begun.

He stood at least nine feet tall, broad enough across the shoulders that the proportions felt wrong on a human frame. Black wings unfolded slowly from his back, feathers catching no light at all. The broadsword in his hand ignited a moment later, wrapped from base to tip in flame that was not merely dark but somehow deeper than darkness.

’He is one of the altered humans..’ Sera thought.

”Pretty little trick,” Zeke said, tilting his head. ”Did your instructors teach you that, or did you figure it out screaming in the dark somewhere?”

”Does it matter?”

”Not really. I am simply curious what kind of person G-21 sent me to kill.”

”The kind who is about to make you regret asking.”

Sera threw a substitution charm and the world folded around her for the barest instant. She reappeared forty feet from him, matching his altitude exactly, the wind at this height sharp and biting.

She threw a second charm.

Where it struck open air, it dissolved into a mist, rising with impossible speed, condensing as it climbed until it had taken the shape of something enormous. It had turned into a boulder of solid light wrapped entirely in divine flame, hurtling toward Zeke with the gathered force of a falling star!

Zeke, however, did not panic.

His broadsword swept up and across in a single arc, black fire meeting divine light head-on, and for one suspended moment the two forces strained against each other in the open air. Then the boulder split, cleaved cleanly in two, its halves raining down toward the plain far below.

Bam!

The two halves hit the plain below, creating two huge cracks.

”Is that truly your best?” Zeke called out, voice edged with something almost like disappointment. ”I was told to expect a fight, not a firework display.”

It had never been meant to land.

It had been meant to buy her three seconds, and three seconds was more than enough.

Sera was already there.

Ten feet from him now, close enough to see the surprise flicker briefly across his expression before he could suppress it, her sword was no longer simply glowing but fully alight, wreathed in flame that had taken the unmistakable shape of a dragon, jaws parted, eyes burning brighter than the fire that made them.

”There she is,” Zeke muttered, something almost approving in his tone.

His own weapon answered in kind, black fire twisting and reshaping itself into a serpent, it was four-horned, eyes weeping something that looked disturbingly like pus.

”Whoever sent you,” Sera said quietly, ”tell them, when you see them again, that they should have sent somebody better.”

”I do not think I will be delivering that message.”

”No,” she agreed. ”I do not think you will.”

”Imperial Execution!” Sera shouted.

”Prisoner’s Bane!” Zeke replied.

Dragon and serpent met in the open air between them, and the sound that followed was not simply the ring of steel against steel.

Slash! Dharum! Sheek!

The impact rolled outward across the empty plain like distant thunder, shaking loose whatever birds had been foolish enough to nest on hills with no trees to hold them.

When the light finally faded, only one figure remained standing.

Sera stood on the eastern hill now, sword lowered at her side, breathing steady despite the tremor still working its way through her hands. Below her, on the empty plain, Zeke’s body fell in two clean pieces, fire still clinging stubbornly to what remained of him even as he struck the ground.

”Bastard talked too much anyway,” she muttered, and turned away without looking back.