Chapter 27: The Knife She Never Swung

Chapter 27: Chapter 27: The Knife She Never Swung Night fell quietly. Too quietly. No divine attacks. No system glitches. No trials. Just firelight, a still sky... and waiting. Kai sat alone, his body still aching from the resurrection exchange, staring into the embers like they might offer answers. That’s when he heard her. Soft steps. A shift in the wind. The faint scrape of a blade being sheathed. Lira. He didn’t turn. "Didn’t expect you to come talk." "I didn’t come to talk," she said. "I came to finish something." That got his attention. He looked up. She stood across from him, cloaked in shadow, her usual smirk gone. Her eyes glinted like steel in moonlight. "You don’t remember, do you?" Kai frowned. "Remember what?" She stepped closer. Then dropped something at his feet. A charm. Silver. Etched with a phoenix sigil. Earth-style. [System Flashback Triggered – Memory Fragment Detected] Syncing... 27%... 43%... 80% Event: Earth – Kai Veyron / Lira Katsuki Time: 3 years before Summoning Accessing shared trauma... And suddenly he saw it. A dark alley. Rain. Two shadows running from a collapsing building. And a voice shouting: "Leave him — he’s not worth it!" A girl. Black hair. Red jacket. Lira. And Kai, half-conscious, bleeding, slumped against a wall. "You saved me..." he whispered, back in the present. Lira said nothing. Just stared. "You were the girl from that night in Tokyo." Still nothing. Then: "And you forgot. Like it was nothing." "I didn’t—" "Yes, you did." She pulled out a second item. A dagger. Familiar. Because it was the first weapon she ever held in this world — the one she trained with, bonded with, sharpened daily. She pressed it into his hand. "You know what the gods told me, the day I arrived?" He shook his head slowly. She leaned in close. "That I was brought here to kill the one person I once saved." [System Revelation: Lira’s Divine Directive] Objective: Execute the Catalyst if he regains memory of her origin Reward: Absolute Cleansing / Return to Earth Status: Delayed Kai stared at the blade. Then up at her. "And?" "And what?" she asked. "Are you going to kill me now?" She didn’t answer. Instead, she dropped to one knee, pulled a small vial from her belt, and poured it into the fire. It flashed green, then purple — revealing a memory seal hovering over the flame. A contract. A curse. A confession. It read: "When the Catalyst remembers who she was, she must decide: Love him. Or end him." The fire burned lower. Kai looked at her. "I’m sorry," he said. "For forgetting. For being too late. For not seeing you." Lira’s voice cracked. "I hated you for it." He nodded. "I would’ve too." "And yet..." She turned away. "...I can’t kill you." Silence again. Then she looked over her shoulder. Tears in her eyes — the first he’d ever seen. "You want to know the real reason I’ve never tried to stab you?" "Because your cooking’s terrible?" She smiled, bitter. "Because if I ever did, I’d make it count." She stepped into the shadows. Stopped only once. And whispered— "Don’t make me finish what they started." [System Update: Lira’s Bond Shifted] New Status: Betrayer-In-Waiting Loyalty: 80% Emotional Conflict: MAX Passive Effect: Lira will protect Kai from external threats... But may turn lethal if triggered by prophecy, system collapse, or emotional betrayal. Kai sat by the fire long after she left. The dagger still in his hand. And for the first time, he realized: It wasn’t the gods who wanted him dead the most. It was the people who loved him just enough to hesitate. Far away, in a marble sanctum floating above the clouds, the divine tribunal watched the scene unfold. "She’s breaking protocol," one deity said. "No," whispered another. "She’s just choosing which version of him she wants to kill."