The rain didn’t bother him.

  Kiba Yuuto walked through the streets of Kuoh still wearing his uniform, his shoes already beyond repair, and he didn’t care about either of them. There were days when the rain was background noise. There were days when it was company.

  Tonight it was both.

  He had been walking for forty minutes without a declared destination.

  That was also a lie, of course.

  He had a destination.

  He always had a destination.

  The problem was that he hadn’t told anyone, because if he named it, it would become real. And if it became real, he would have to act. And if he acted, Rias would find out. And if Rias found out, she would do exactly what he needed least:

  worry about him.

  He stopped at the edge of an empty park.

  Excalibur was in the city.

  Not one.

  According to the information he had gathered on his own, at least three fragments were in the hands of Church exorcists.

  The kind of data a servant should not collect without reporting it.

  The kind of work a servant should not do alone.

  But he was not here only as a servant.

  He was here as the only survivor of the Holy Sword Project who could still walk.

  The others never reached their fourteenth birthday.

  He did.

  Why, he never fully understood.

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  Maybe because he was faster.

  Maybe because the pain of the Sacred Gear manifested earlier, when there was still time to adapt.

  Maybe pure chance.

  Which was the explanation he hated most.

  They had died dreaming of wielding Excalibur.

  He lived dreaming of breaking it.

  From the outside, the difference between those two things seemed small.

  From the inside, it was the only territory he truly knew.

  A figure stood at the far end of the park.

  Black habit.

  Cross on the chest.

  Kiba stopped.

  The exorcist did not look at him immediately. He was smoking with the indifference of someone who knew he had all the time in the world.

  Then, as if he had smelled him before seeing him, he turned his head.

  Kiba recognized the eyes before the name.

  Those eyes forgot nothing.

  And that kind of man enjoyed that they forgot nothing.

  Freed Selzan.

  —Hey, hey. —Freed flicked the cigarette away without putting it out.— If it isn’t my favorite swordsman.

  Kiba formed a sword in his left hand.

  Freed looked at it with something close to affection.

  —Always so fast. —He drew his own weapon slowly, as if he had no hurry at all.— Did you know I have information about three Excaliburs half an hour from here? Not together, of course. That would be careless. But I could take you there, if you want. Like a special service.

  —Why would you be willing to do that? —Kiba asked.

  —Because you’re more fun than the others. —Freed smiled in that way that never reached his eyes.— The others just scream, or cry, or do both. You stay still. I find that respectable.

  It wasn’t a compliment.

  It was the evaluation of someone who collected reactions.

  Kiba took a step forward.

  —Where?

  Freed tilted his head.

  —Seriously? Without asking the price?

  —The price is this fight. If I win, you tell me. If you can’t continue, it no longer matters.

  A second of silence.

  Then Freed laughed.

  —Now that I like.

  The fight lasted four minutes.

  Kiba won.

  Barely.

  Not because he was stronger.

  Because Freed got bored before using everything he had.

  Which was exactly the kind of condescension that could get him killed if he wasn’t careful.

  Freed left bleeding from the arm and still laughing.

  The address he had given him was in Kiba’s pocket.

  Kiba stood there in the empty park, his sword dissolving in his fingers, the rain washing away the last traces of the fight.

  He could report it.

  He could tell Rias what he had just learned.

  But then Rias would make the decision.

  Rias would define the plan.

  Rias would take them all together, carefully, in order, making sure no one got hurt.

  And he had waited twelve years for this moment.

  Alone.

  He folded the paper with the address.

  Not tonight.

  Not yet tonight.

  But soon.

  When the Excaliburs and the exorcists were in the same place.

  When there was a real opportunity, not just a piece of information.

  The rain did not stop.

  Kiba walked back toward his house with the silent certainty that he was doing exactly what his master had asked him not to do.

  And with the absolute inability to do anything else.

  The dead did not expect him to be reasonable.

  Only to go.