𝒲𝒾𝓃𝓉ℯ𝓇 𝒲ℴ𝓃𝒹ℯ𝓇𝓁𝒶𝓃𝒹： 𝒯𝒽𝒶𝓌 ℴ𝒻 𝓉𝒽ℯ ℱ𝓇ℴ𝓏ℯ𝓃 ℋℯ𝒶𝓇𝓉

𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑈𝑠𝑢𝑟𝑝𝑒𝑟 𝑓𝑟𝑜𝑚 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑊𝑖𝑙𝑑𝑠： 𝐶ℎ𝑎𝑝𝑡𝑒𝑟 50 𝐹𝑖𝑛𝑎𝑙𝑒

*
"And the blade whistles down as you call out my line..."

**
School Infirmary

Grim had just made a risky long-range shot—ten minutes after the earlier accident—hoping to redeem himself. But far from the arena, inside the secluded infirmary ward, Y/n was just beginning to stir.

Her lashes fluttered.

All she could see was a murky grey.

"...Nngh... Where...am I...?" she murmured, her voice hoarse, disoriented.

She shifted slowly, only to feel a cloth tightly tied over her eyes. 'Blindfolded...?' she thought, raising a trembling hand to trace it. Her fingers brushed over something tacky, sticky, and dark. She could faintly glimpse the blurred sheen of inky blackness from beneath the blindfold.

'Ink... I'm still not better,' she realized grimly.

Unbeknownst to her, the aftereffects of her Song Art—Lullaby—had activated mid-transport to the infirmary. The cursed melody had pulled at something deep inside her, causing dark ink to seep from her eyes and lips like tears from another world.

Suddenly, the room shifted. A presence entered—powerful, ancient, suffocating.

Before she could rise, a firm but careful hand pressed her gently back down. "You needn't strain yourself, my Once Upon a Dream," came a deep, smooth, deceptively kind voice. Velvet and ash.

Y/n's breath hitched.

That voice...

She couldn't place it, but her heart knew.

From beneath the haze of her vision, she could make out the tall silhouette hovering above her—a black figure, like a crowned shadow. Cold sweat formed on her palms. Her limbs trembled involuntarily.

"W-Who... Who are you? Did something... happen?" she asked, her voice meek and unsteady.

"I heard," the figure said softly, though the tenderness in his voice quickly turned icy, "that you used magic without your Heart of Lumia... and dared to cast that cursed song again."

The air thickened with pressure.

Y/n froze.

He knew.

"...Oh. I guess I did cast Lullaby," Y/n murmured faintly, her tone growing flat. "I... forgot about that."

Silence.

Then—

"What on earth were you thinking?!" the voice erupted, cracking like a bolt of green lightning.

Y/n flinched.

"You knew—you knew what casting that spell without your Heart would do to you!" His voice trembled with fury and heartbreak. "You were on the verge of overblotting yourself. You could've died, Y/n! So why—why?!"

"...I had to," she whispered, guilt lacing every syllable.

A harsh silence followed.