The smile she remembered

✧ Long Ago — A Memory

In a meadow far from war and worry, two elves stood beneath a sky painted with twilight.

Magic danced between their fingertips.

One summoned a lattice of light, rigid and precise. The other conjured a burst of glittering petals, chaotic and colorful.

"You're too stiff, Frieren," Milirade laughed.

"And you're too reckless," Frieren replied, but her voice lacked bite.

The meadow shimmered with laughter and mana. Milirade spun, her spell leaving a trail of flowers behind. Magic wasn't just a weapon to her. It was freedom. Joy.

"You'll never get the drop on a demon if your spells all follow rules," Milirade teased.

"I'd rather survive than impress one," Frieren muttered.

Milirade's grin softened.

"You'll remember this someday," she said.

"The way we practiced. The way we smiled."

✧ Present — The Festival's Edge

The grand hall still buzzed with confusion—but Frieren had already left.

A shimmer in the air. Residual mana. A trail—faint, but present.

Not even Serie followed. Not even her hand-picked mages dared.

But Frieren did.

Down stone corridors lined with echoing pipes. Past kitchens and enchanted stairwells. Into the underworks of the imperial palace—where glamour died, and silence clung like fog.

She found her.

Minus.

Leaning against a broken archway. Cloak discarded. Hair touched with silver and memory. Her hand rested on the wall like it remembered the stone.

"You followed," Minus said, unsurprised.

"You didn't make it hard," Frieren replied.

A pause.

Then: "You used her."

Minus turned, brows lifting. "Used?"

"Milirade. Her body. Her magic. Her smile."

For the first time, the calm in Minus's eyes faltered.

"I didn't steal it," she said. "She gave it to me."

Frieren's fists clenched. "She was dead."

"So was I."

The corridor tightened with mana.

"Why now?" Frieren asked.

"Because Serie asked me to. Because the world still lets monsters live. Because Lowe breathes."

Then she smiled.

It was wrong.

Or it should have been.

But it wasn't cruel. Not exactly.

It was familiar.

Too familiar.

"That smile—" Frieren whispered.

"You remember it," Minus said.

And then—

A flash.

Frieren's spell launched—a reflex honed over a millennium.

It was her temporal ice coffin, the very spell she once used to bind the Demon King.

Its crystalline walls moved faster than perception, meant to freeze the soul in time and shatter anything less than divinity.

It hit nothing.

The wall exploded.

Minus stepped through dust and falling frost, her mana humming with something deeper.

✧ The Fight Begins

They didn't speak now.

Magic filled the corridor like floodwater—dense, fast, lethal.

Frieren cast in silence. Binding rings. Mana-seeking arrows. Shields thin as breath but strong as mythril.

Minus responded—not by matching, but by rewriting.

A wave of distorted space unraveled Frieren's magic mid-form. A jagged whip of black ice pierced her shield—not with force, but by understanding.

"You remember how I fight," Frieren said.

"I remember how you think," Minus corrected.

The hall shattered under the weight of their magic.

A spear of molten metal—Milirade's old spell—shot from Minus's hand.

Frieren dodged a beat too late. It grazed her shoulder, burned through cloth and flesh.

"Stop using her magic!" Frieren snapped.

"She's part of me," Minus hissed. "And you abandoned her."

Desperate now, Frieren summoned her coffin again—layered, refined, aimed to trap not just body but mana.

But Minus stepped through it.

Not around.

Not broken.

Through.

"That's not possible," Frieren breathed.

"Not for you," Minus replied. "But I'm not you."

She traced a sigil into the air.

The mana changed. Became heavier.

It wasn't divine. Or demonic.

It was ancient.

Ars Finita.

The spell Serie had given her—never used, never recorded.

A spell designed to strike internally. To rip apart a person's essence—memory, identity, will—depending on how much power was fed into it.

This was low output. A test.

The moment it touched Frieren, she staggered.

And then—

The meadow bloomed around her again.

Milirade laughing. Spinning. "You'll remember this someday."

Frieren fell to one knee.

✧ The Smile She Remembered

Minus stood over her—not victorious. Not gloating.

Just… tired.

"I don't want to kill you," she said.

"Then why fight?"

"Because you wouldn't believe me otherwise."

Silence. The faint music of the distant festival. A drip of water in the stone.

Frieren looked up.

Minus smiled again.

Milirade's smile.

"You're not just her," Frieren said.

"No," Minus whispered. "But she's not gone."

Frieren rose, slow and wary.

"Then what are you?"

Minus's eyes darkened. Her voice was almost gentle.

"Something new."

And with that, the mana folded around her like a closing curtain.

She was gone.

No trace.

Just silence.

✧ Epilogue: Elsewhere

Lowe stood at the edge of the palace roof, watching the night sky.

He had felt the mana surge.

And he knew—deep in his bones—

This would not be a clean war.

Next Time: "Old Magic, New Monsters"