While Shirou and Kurono vanished into the safety of the forest's emerald embrace, chaos bloomed behind them like poisoned flowers. Smoke curled into the twilight sky, rising from what had once been a fortified research compound—now fractured ruins echoing with crumbling stone and the cries of wounded men.
The lab had been a silent citadel, hidden far from prying eyes, nestled deep in the belly of a forest untouched by time or trade. A place far removed from the gaze of the ordinary citizen—because the truth, as it so often is, was dangerous.
This had been one of many secrets buried beneath the polished mask of the White Sacrament.
To most of the world—especially the humans of the Arc Continent—the White Sacrament was nothing short of divine. They were saviors clad in white, the champions of justice, the harbingers of light. In the eyes of the masses, they were the hand of the White Lord, the immortal deity who had gifted humanity with strength, order, and reason. Under their guidance, humankind had flourished. Savage kings were dethroned, oppressive nobles toppled, and the poor lifted from the gutter by reforms that glittered with hope.
They brought education. They ended wars. They told stories of light vanquishing darkness.
But the truth—always far more complicated than the myth—lay coiled like a serpent beneath it all.
The White Sacrament preached supremacy—the unquestionable belief that humankind was chosen, blessed, and pure. All others—beasts, elves, demons, spirits, fae—were tainted. They were called monsters, even if they wept, loved, or prayed like humans did. Any city that harbored non-humans risked purification by fire. Villages disappeared in the dead of night, erased for their disobedience. And those few humans who showed sympathy for the so-called impure? They too were deemed traitors and hunted like wolves.
To the average citizen, though, this was distant. Abstract. Cloaked in noble language. The White Lord—a being of light, a immortal of the higher realms—was their protector. His strength grew from their belief. His armies were angels, his Sacrament divine.
They never saw the cages. The labs. The twisted halls where "experiments" were conducted on those stolen from other worlds—those like Kurono. Because, after all, what was one life… if it protected millions?
The White Lord had risen from the ashes of the Ancient Demon King's reign, a time when monsters ruled and humans were hunted. The scars of that era had never healed. Hatred had taken root, passed down in bedtime stories and scripture. The White Sacrament had emerged as a sword of vengeance—cutting down corruption with righteousness in hand, rallying humanity behind a single banner.
And it had worked. The Arc Continent was now united, thriving, its nations ruled by the bloodlines of ancient heroes, most under the Holy Empire's ever-growing shadow.
But not all shadows could be seen.
The laboratory was not far from Pearl harbor, a busy port town brimming with fishermen, merchants, and pilgrims who often spoke reverently of the holy men at the edge of the forest. Few of them knew—or dared to question—what lay beyond the final bend of the cobbled road, past the quiet trees and under the humming wards that cloaked a seemingly innocuous compound nestled among the hills.
Here stood the Third Laboratory of the White Sacrament, known to very few, and truly understood by even fewer.
Its master was Bishop Judas, a name that, in hushed circles, bore weight and reverence. To the townsfolk who caught glimpses of him on rare visits—an old man tall in stature, with a flowing white beard and wise blue eyes—he appeared every inch the gentle shepherd. He wore the robes of a high priest, pristine white traced with glimmering golden seams woven from mythril thread, shimmering subtly in the light, as though the stars themselves had whispered blessings into the cloth.
But behind the lab's runed doors, far from the warmth of prayer halls and sermon gatherings, the mask fell.
Judas, for all his saintly bearing, was not a man of mercy.
He was the architect of the Heaven's Soldier Project—a military endeavour so secretive, so morally corroded, that not even the other bishops dared inquire too deeply. Within the walls of the lab, Judas orchestrated a war before the war, preparing human weapons to strike at the hearts of the non-human races with a precision only faith and madness could sharpen.
It had begun, as so many things did, with discovery.
Through ancient grimoires and shattered relics pulled from ruined temples of forgotten ages, Judas had found whispers of an old and forbidden art: World-Summoning. The spells were delicate and dangerous—networks of runes woven between dimensions, plucking lost souls from realities not their own.
These summoned beings, when they arrived, were fragile, dazed, and—most critically—empty. They bore no innate magic of their own, making them perfect vessels. Judas had devised a way to fill them with dark magic—the very same forbidden force wielded by the monsters of Pandora. It was poetic in his eyes: poison fighting poison. Sin against sin. And in the name of the White Lord, it was justified.
Judas was born to the Sacrament, an orphan left on its marble steps with no name and no inheritance but the Church's mercy. He had risen not by charm, nor by noble blood, but by brilliance. A prodigy in runic theory and ancient magic, he was one of the few ever to be directly blessed by the White Lord—a gift that branded his soul and solidified his unshakable loyalty. Research was his cathedral. Results, his gospel. And in the quietest hours, when the screams of failed subjects echoed faintly down the stone corridors, he sometimes smiled.
Lately, that smile had vanished.
Judas stood in his sanctum, a chamber layered in protective enchantments and lined with relics too volatile to be stored elsewhere. His expression, as he replayed the magical recording, was unreadable. Projected into the air by the Golem Eyes stationed at the lab's gate, the scene unfolded with brutal clarity.
A boy—no, a man—dressed not in armor, but confidence. Red light twisted into a bow in his hands, and a single shot tore through barriers, mages, and men alike. The weapon he had conjured had surpassed even Judas's expectations. Its shape—Caladbolg, if the runic reconstruction was accurate—was myth made manifest.
"Not a child," Judas murmured to no one. "Not a scholar. A soldier."
The idea stirred something in his chest—a mix of excitement and unease. If this Shirou had been summoned by accident… then what of the next? Would they summon a demon cloaked in human skin? An immortal with a vendetta? The veil between worlds was thin now, and curiosity had a cost.
Still, he couldn't deny the brilliance of the specimen.
Judas's lips thinned. "First-Class… at the very least."
It was a hesitant conclusion, drawn from observation rather than encounter. He himself was a First-Class Mage, with three decades of sanctioned experimentation, Holy Blessings, and unsanctioned acts buried under marble and myth. Above him stood only the Grand Mages—half-legends, half-tyrants—and the Arch Mages, beings who were as rare as they were removed from the affairs of ordinary men.
And yet here was a boy—summoned, untrained, unprepared—ripping through barriers and mages as if they were no more than parchment. The magic used had not been logged in any existing grimoires. No chants. No staff. Only will.
Judas turned away from the projection and began pacing, each step echoing softly off the stone tiles beneath his boots. His mind, ever active, raced through possibilities.
Who was this Shirou?
He didn't want just his magic—though that was reason enough for any of the higher-ups to send a retrieval squad. Judas wanted his knowledge—not just of battle, but of the world beyond the veil. The world where magic was myth, and machines ruled in its place. That contradiction alone made Judas's blood sing with curiosity. What secrets lay in the minds of men who believed the arcane to be fiction, and yet built devices that rivalled the divine?
He hadn't ignored the lessons from past summonings. Records had been kept—religiously. The souls dragged into their world by the Summoning Matrix often knew little of worth. Children. Scholars. Workers. Dreamers. Their minds were largely empty of tactical knowledge, but filled with fragments of a civilization more advanced than anything the White Sacrament had ever dared imagine.
Trains. Guns. Communication networks. Cars. Flying machines. Mech suits. Nuclear energy.
Even the names of these ideas carried a kind of poetry, a whisper of divinity cloaked in steel and science.
And humans—how creative they were in their other world. Imagination, Judas had learned, was a kind of magic in itself. These summoned youths had seen no real battlefields, no arcanum halls, and yet they could conjure visions of flying fortresses, sentient machines, and magical weapons powered by nothing but light and numbers. That imaginative residue had been more valuable than most realized.
The White Sacrament had already begun forging their own versions. Rudimentary airships, early prototypes of compressed energy cores, even armor plating modeled after imagined designs from the minds of frightened outsiders. It was crude—but it worked. Judas's teams had recently succeeded in doubling a Golem's power output by applying energy compression matrices inspired by the concept of 'fuel cells.'
And now—Shirou.
A real warrior. With magic. With intent.
If they could capture him, dissect his knowledge, replicate his weaponry… the White Sacrament could usher in an era unlike any the world had ever seen. Even the Immortals would turn their eyes.
Judas's lips curled into a smile. Not the gentle, pastoral grin the townspeople knew—but a thin, gleaming crescent of ambition and hunger. It was the smile of a man who had long since traded his conscience for revelation.
"The wonders of another world," he whispered, "brought to their knees by faith and fire."
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"Kotaro, track him down. Saito, follow and provide assistance."
Bishop Judas spoke softly, the command rolling from his tongue like a benediction. Yet there was no mistaking the steel behind it. His pale fingers rested atop a crystal orb, humming softly with residual magic, as his gaze settled on the two figures seated opposite his desk—both as still and obedient as hounds awaiting their master's leash.
The office, lit by violet glowstones and shrouded in the scent of parchment and powdered alchemy, felt colder with the presence of the two young men. Products, Judas often called them. Not soldiers. Not men. They were results—crafted, tested, perfected under the sterile light of surgical enchantments and the darkness of forgotten spells. Each a culmination of the Heaven's Soldier Project, and now, his most treasured weapons.
Fūma Kotarō was the first to stir.
Compact, feline, and coiled with energy, the red-haired youth sat with his shoulders square and eyes unblinking. His features, sharp and unreadable, bore the faintest traces of mixed blood—a heritage stripped of meaning in the face of magical engineering. His body was small but lethal, built like a crossbow primed to strike. Clad in a dark shinobi garb—his own aesthetic choice—he carried the air of something that did not belong in this century. A ghost of older violence.
Razor-thin ninja wires glinted under his sleeves. A pouch of kunai rested at his hip. Poison pellets, smoke bombs, and a thin, curved blade completed his arsenal. But it was his mind that Judas treasured most—rewired by incantations so old they had no name, molded by years of conditioning. He did not breathe without instruction.
Beside him stood his opposite—Saitō.
Taller, broader, and dressed in battle-worn leather armor with subtle gleams of mithril embedded at his shoulders and ribs, Saitō was the storm to Kotarō's whisper. His black hair hung loose, his expression unreadable but not vacant. Twin katanas were strapped to his back, their hilts worn from use. He was the front-line beast—agile, aggressive, but still bound by the invisible leash around his soul. The leash Judas held.
"Do we kill him, Master?" Kotarō's voice was flat, hollow—like a bell that had forgotten its ring. His red eyes did not flicker, not even in anticipation.
"No," Judas replied, folding his hands over one another. "Capture him, if possible. Observe and report once you locate him."
He spoke with the assurance of a man who understood the limitations of his tools. Judas did not expect the pair to defeat Shirou. That would require the deployment of the Hunter Squad, or even better, the elite Pegasus Unit, whose members were currently stationed at the Northern Wall. But they were not easily dispatched, and political favors would need to be exchanged for their involvement.
Kotarō was a necessity, not a luxury. His skills were unparalleled—tracking, infiltration, subterfuge. The epitome of shadows. Only the Eighth Apostle, renowned across kingdoms for his ability to follow anything with a breath, could rival him… and the Apostle, regrettably, was beyond Judas's reach for now.
"As you wish, Master." Kotarō bowed low, his voice a whisper of silk and steel. Saitō mirrored him with quiet precision, and the two departed, disappearing into the corridor like breath into winter air.
They did not speak as they left. They had no need to.
Outside, the storm had passed, but the earth was still slick from its tears. Shirou had fled hastily, and despite his strength, he had made mistakes—footprints. To the untrained eye, they would be invisible. But to Kotarō, they were a symphony of signs: the bend of grass, the curve of a boot in the mud, the displaced twig.
----------------------
Far behind them, the hunters stirred in the ashes of their failure. But Shirou and Kurono had already vanished into the winding, tangled forest, where roots coiled like serpents and the canopy swallowed the sun. Their breath came in short, sharp bursts, but they did not slow. Time was not an ally. Not yet.
They emerged at last from the edge of the trees into a thinning woodland that gave way to a village in the distance—its thatched rooftops peeking timidly through the mist, chimneys sighing smoke into the twilight.
Shirou came to an abrupt halt.
His boots slid against the dirt, and his eyes narrowed as he knelt, inspecting the trail they had left behind. Even in this world, footsteps were far more than just impressions on soil. Here, the very memory of your passing could be preserved by magic—snared in the air, etched in dew, or painted in the whispers of the wind.
And he had made a mistake.
"Damn," he muttered under his breath. He pressed his palm to the earth, drawing on a thread of controlled magic. Nothing explosive. Nothing that would light up the skies like a beacon.
Instead, he rewove the impressions—sending false trails spiraling outward, in three separate directions. One path to the village. Another back into the trees. A third, deliberately meandering towards the east. All clever lies.
Then, with a flick of his wrist, he unwrote the rest—vanishing their trail from the last known point.
Kurono had been watching silently, sharp-eyed. He didn't speak, didn't question, and didn't glance toward the village. Shirou didn't need to tell him to avoid it. The boy was as cautious as a cornered cat—mistrusting of every stone and stranger this world had to offer. Whatever he had endured in that lab, it had scorched wariness deep into his soul.
They turned to the right and ran, full tilt, lungs burning and legs aching. The terrain shifted as they moved, the trees growing sparser, the ground rockier and speckled with moss and wild roots. Hours passed. The sky darkened. And finally—mountains.
They stood like sentinels on the horizon, cloaked in dark green and scattered with jagged grey stone. Shirou slowed as they approached, chest heaving. Their pace had kept them ahead of any pursuers, but energy—both magical and physical—was dwindling fast.
"We'll rest here," Shirou said, scanning the rugged slope.
Kurono didn't argue. He had no complaints—only exhaustion written across his face. His gaze drifted toward the treetops, and Shirou followed it.
They didn't dare light a flare, or risk a magical pulse to search for a cave. Magic pulsing was like ringing a bell underwater—everything within range would feel it. Including the wrong eyes.
So instead, they climbed.
The trees here were tall and thick-limbed, ancient things wrapped in ivy and crowned with tangled nests. Higher and higher they climbed, until the forest floor below looked like a writhing carpet of shadow and leaf.
Kurono settled awkwardly on a thick branch that forked into two. It wasn't comfortable—but it wasn't a lab cot, or a steel cage, or the bloody floor of a test chamber.
By comparison, it might as well have been a throne.
"Better than sleeping next to screaming lunatics," he muttered, eyes closing.
Shirou gave a faint smirk and pulled out the birds they'd caught earlier—simple creatures trapped with silent snares and thrown into his storage spell. With a flick of fire magic, he plucked and fried them gently, the scent rising into the cool air. No smoke, no blaze—just a quiet sizzle under the starlight.
The two ate in silence.
For now, there was no hunter. No lab. No Judas.
Only branches beneath them, stars above, and a world that was watching—silently, unknowingly, waiting.