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"Get back here, you fucking whore! I'm going to kill you! I'm going to tear your fucking eyes out and shove it down your—"
The angry snarl and bloodcurdling scream afterwards almost made Leonie think something was going on in Shez's tent.
It couldn't be— she could see that there was only one silhouette inside, and the security around the camp was pretty tight.
Shez jolted up. Leonie waited for her to catch her breath before entering.
"Morning."
"Morning."
Silence.
"Are you… doing okay?" Leonie asked.
A sigh, and a shake of the head.
"I'm fine. It's just. You know."
Right, nightmares about her entire band getting decimated— by one person.
Leonie scratched her head. Shez always said that you couldn't survive as a mercenary if you got too attached, but even then, that must have been difficult to watch.
There wasn't much she could do say on the matter, was there? Not without making it awkward.
"Let's go get breakfast. They're won't leave any for us common scragglers if we're late."
Shez was back to her usual self after a stretch and a yawn.
"Yeah, let's," she said, grabbing her hair tie. "Fighting on an empty stomach sucks."
That clearly came from an abundance of personal experience.
Shez whistled a little tune as they walked towards the canteen.
The sky was clear and blue, the Alliance was close to driving the Imperials out of their lands, and Leonie knew the next battle would be a great opportunity to make a name for herself. Not to mention she was learning a lot from fighting alongside Shez.
"…Wonder if the Ashen Demon's gonna be there, I need to turn that bitch into a fucking meat skewer."
Mostly that this Ashen Demon figure should be avoided, preferably, and that Shez who heard about the Ashen Demon showing up on the battlefield should be avoided, definitely.
It was the first time his child had asked such a question.
"Do you remember any of the people we've killed."
She did it in her typical fashion, face blank and voice monotonous. He knew even his own men looked at her and whispered among themselves that she felt nothing, that she was more a blade than a human.
Jeralt took a swig of whiskey.
"You know there ain't much point in doing that."
"You didn't answer the question."
Pause. Ponder.
"Not for long," was his honest answer.
His first battle had been terrifying. His tenth battle had been exhilarating. His hundredth battle was tiring. His thousandth had turned into background noise— the same one she'd listened to all her life.
Shoes tapping on the ground.
"Then I won't kill her," Byleth said. "Yet."
The purple kid from Berling's band. The one she faced in the last battle— expected to be there at the next one, too.
She sipped from her mug like a child drinking juice. Jeralt waited.
"I want to remember," she continued, slightly quieter. "What I felt when we fought."
Felt.
Had she ever said that in relation to— another person?
"What'd you feel, kid."
She pondered like he did; looking into the mug, swishing the remaining drink back and forth.
"I'm not sure," was her eventual reply.
Then, a slight smile.
"I'll fight her until I figure it out."
"I… almost… had her…"
The uncanny scarlet glow blinked in and out as Shamir dragged the other woman away.
That Ashen Demon had done a number on her; torn fabric bandages the gashes, but ominous green glow threateningly emanated from below.
Something told Shamir the wound wasn't meant to heal. Not normally.
"She killed all of them," Shez wheezed, attempt at looking at Shamir just making her head flop the other way. "In one night, just like that. Bet she doesn't even remember it.
"Be quiet," Shamir said.
Shez laughed— an eery laughter without any strength behind it, so unlike her usual self. The scarlet flared again.
"I'll make her remember, you know that? Gonna fuck her up real good."
A misstep. They nearly toppled, and Shez's choking cough sprayed blood.
"I gotta make sure she can't forget," Shez rambled. "Ever. I have to make her remember."
"If you have energy to talk, save it."
"She'll remember. Someone has to, right? Someone, someone has to…"
She wasn't listening. Shamir gritted her teeth and squinted.
There was something wrong with the distance. No matter how many steps they took, the camp in the distance didn't get any closer.
"I'm forgetting what they looked like," Shez whispered. "I remember that bitch's face, but I can't remember theirs."
More laughter. Scarlet and green leaked everywhere.
"We're cheap, right? Cheap pieces. We don't even remember each other. We're just not worth that much."
Shut up, Shamir wanted to yell. Shut up, stop talking.
It was true, and it was too miserable to hear out loud.
Shez tripped and they stumbled and stumbled and stumbled, enough to send them off path, but the visible distance of their surroundings still didn't change. Shamir swore they'd fallen over multiple times— and the world had moved in accordance, determined to make every motion irrelevant.
"I'm going to make her pay," Shez repeated, yet again, mindless. "I'm going to make her, why can't I, why, is it, really that bad to—"
Tripping footsteps. Shamir felt spit and blood splattering onto her with hacking coughs.
Shez made some kind of noise, like a laugh and a cry, muscles twitching and jerking to the dance of scarlet and green lights.
Then she went limp. The colors were gone.
The camp grew closer when Shamir dragged their feet forward, and the rest of the Deer ran forward, faces full of worry.
Before they carried Shez off, Shamir caught a very soft,
"…want someone to remember."
The Ashen Demon's fist connected to Shez's stomach, sending the latter crashing into a dummy.
Behind the tree, Lysithea flinched, but she managed to not yelp. Apparently a week of keeping an eye on them— by Claude's orders, to make sure they didn't go overboard and kill each other, on the account of their history— was enough to make her accustomed to such sights.
The Ashen Demon crouched.
"How was it," she asked, offering a hand.
Shez's back was slumped as she took it and stood up, holding her stomach with her other arm.
"You still pack a mean punch," she said, with a small laugh, weak but streaked with genuine delight. "And you fight well barehanded. How come you don't advertise yourself as a brawler more? That's gotta have less competition than swords."
"Element of surprise. Especially to enemies who try to disarm me."
Shez seemed to ponder for a moment.
"Makes sense," she said, nodding.
Silence. The Ashen Demon looked down at their held hands, face still blank, and—
—wove their fingers together?
Lysithea wondered if she was supposed to be watching this.
"You should do it, too," said the Demon.
"Huh? Do what?"
"Punch me."
Shez scratched her head.
"Just so you can prove you're better and show me up, or."
"Because I'm curious about you."
A visible blush appeared on Shez's face. Lysithea scrunched her brows and resisted the urge to stick her head out further.
Was the Ashen Demon flirting with Shez?
By asking to be punched?
The Ashen Demon stepped closer, and took Shez's other hand.
"I don't remember my opponents," said the Demon. "Not once I've finished my job."
"Well, it's a bit of a necessity in our field, isn't it? We wouldn't stay sane if we remembered every face we've maimed and killed."
"True."
What awfully grim things to discuss in such a casual tone, Lysithea thought. Not that she'd chastise them for it, but still.
The two mercenaries regarded their own hands. For Shez, because must have been too embarrassed to look at the other woman's face. For the Demon, Lysithea had no idea, because her face was still disturbingly blank.
But hopefully this development meant she wouldn't have to worry about anybody getting killed.
The Demon opened her mouth again.
"I remembered you," she said. "I remember every encounter we've had."
Shez slowly lifted her gaze.
"You do?"
"Yes. Because—"
In a flash, Shez was on the ground. The Ashen Demon had her knee pressed into her chest.
"—I think fighting you was the only time I really felt alive."
She unsheathed the knife on her belt.
"So I want to know all about you," said the Demon. "What you think. Why you fight. How you live."
The knife was at Shez's throat.
"And I want to know how you kept doing it, even though I took all your reason to."
Silence, of the sharp and tense kind.
In a motion not quite as fluid as her opponent's, Shez flipped the Ashen Demon over, straddled her chest, and threw her fists down, down, down, over and over and over and over again into her opponent's face.
The noises weren't pleasant, and it went on for much longer than Lysithea was comfortable watching.
When it finally stopped, Shez took a borderline sob of an inhale.
"I can always teach you," she said, a slight shake in her voice. "I'll teach you— all about that. And more. If that's what you want."
Lysithea couldn't see the Demon's expression, but she heard the gentle smile in the woman's next words.
"I do."
No matter how she looked at it, those two were going to do nothing but go overboard from here on.
"It's fine. I have no problem continuing the contract."
Claude internally sighed in relief. Jeralt's Mercenaries, and especially the Ashen Demon herself would be indispensable in the upcoming— and hopefully, final— battle. He really wouldn't have blamed them if they chose to break off the contract, after that incident involving Shez (or rather, the thing that had controlled Shez).
"I only have one thing to request in return," said the Demon.
"I'm all ears."
Probably extra gold, Claude thought. Leicester had plenty, so no problems there—
"Hire Shez to kill me after the war."
Claude tried to figure out if that was a joke, but the Demon's face was as blank as ever.
"Come again?" he asked, just to make sure.
"Hire her to kill me," the Demon repeated. "Surely you have enough gold to pay her."
She didn't seem to get that money was very much beside the point.
Claude took a breath.
"I understand if the recent turn of events have reversed it, but… I was under the impression you two were on better terms now."
"She is very special to me, yes."
Special was certainly a way to describe what Lysithea had reported.
"Well, then— why would you want me to do that?" he asked. "Why would you— want her to do that?"
"Because we realized it's what makes us happy."
Byleth fiddled with the whistle at her belt, smiling a little lovestruck smile— perhaps the purest and warmest one Claude had seen on anybody in recent years.
"She chases. I let her. We fight— and if we make it out alive, that's a precious memory to last us for the rest of our lives. It's all we could ever ask for."
The Demon let go of the whistle and the smile.
"Do it, and we will win this war for you," she continued. "And should you need our power again, it will always be available."
Her gaze was eerily neutral again, as if she was looking right through him. As if she'd already seen that future, as if she already knew all the ways he'd considered their potential uses even after the war.
Claude opened his mouth, hoping to steer the offer towards something more reasonable— something he wasn't going to feel completely insane for entertaining, much less enabling.
He found that he couldn't speak, or move, or breathe.
Like time itself had stopped.
This is where you draw the line, a mocking voice whispered in his head. People like you use us as pieces in bloody games we had no say in, then they get repulsed at the marks that left on us. Typical.
Cold sweat dripped down Claude's back. His lung burned.
But as long as we bring you victory, does it really matter how sick we are in the head?
The unnatural green stared him down.
We'll be forgotten when it's over, anyway, it whispered. We're pieces, and what happens between us will never have mattered.
So, please.
Let us have this.
There were lots of things he wanted to say. Lots of things he wanted to deny.
Time only flowed when he forced a smile and replied,
"Sure. I wish the best for you two."