Chapter 12: A sheep's choice.
Evan opened his eyes.
His vision was slow to clear, a blur of shapes and soft light. He found himself standing. Blinking, he tried to make sense of his surroundings.
A wooden table. Two chairs. A sweet-smelling flowerpot by the window. The familiar balcony outside.
This was his cover home.
“This is a nice home,” a voice said from behind him.
Confusion washed over him, thick and disorienting.
How are they here?
The light filtering through the curtains was gentle, golden—morning light. But that was impossible. He had been in the Record Room late at night.
He turned quickly.
There it was. The same being from the vault. Jet-black armour, a hooded cape, and where the head should be, a dark, featureless void.
Leon walked a slow circle around the room as she spoke.
“You’ve built a wonderful life for yourself,” she said, her voice neutral, almost conversational.
“Not only did you secure a promotion to high-rank broker… you even managed a family.”
She paused near the hearth.
“And a child on the way.”
As she finished, the front door opened.
A woman entered, her long brown hair tied in a ponytail, her green eyes bright. Her round belly pressed against the fabric of her dress. She was pregnant.
She carried a basket of groceries, her face alight with a soft joy.
“They gave us more gifts,” she said, her voice warm.
“Mrs. Haelin knitted little socks. Can you believe it?” She set the basket down, one hand resting on her stomach.
“I keep thinking… I can’t wait for you to meet them, Evan.” Her voice dropped to a happy whisper. “Boy or girl… I just hope we can raise them with all this love.”
Evan stared, staggered. He couldn’t speak, couldn’t move.
Leon’s void-like gaze seemed to settle on the woman. “Such a shame,” she murmured.
“She has no idea who she really married.”
“Don’t,” Evan said, the word sharp and strained. “Don’t you bring her into this.”
Leon continued to circle, a ghost taunting its prey.
“Why not?” The question was gentle, almost reasonable.
“Your real life is waiting in Kaleos, isn’t it? What is there to cling to here? This is just a set you built for a role.”
Evan’s jaw tightened.
Leon sighed, a soft, hollow sound. “With the decisions you’re making, war is inevitable. Everything here will be set to ash. She’ll be one of the many victims. And she’ll never even know her husband helped light the fire.”
Evan’s eyes dropped. He could no longer look at his wife’s smiling face.
“Why hold such sentiment?” Leon pressed.
“You’ll be a hero in Kaleos. You and your fellow spies—hailed as liberators, as saviors. Isn’t that the promise?”
But is it?
The question, buried deep, stirred uncomfortably.
He had been raised to be Vanafran his whole life.
Would Kaleos truly accept him back?
He had convinced himself, over and over, when his resolve wavered… but the doubt never fully left.
“You know the truth,” Leon said, her voice dropping, penetrating.
“You’re a successful tool. And tools are discarded when the job is done. You will never return to Kaleos. Your parents probably replaced you years ago. So tell me… who are you, really?”
She gestured slightly toward the woman now humming in the kitchen.
“You have it all now. A life many would wish for. A wife. A child. People who hold you dear. Will you throw this away? For a war that will take everything from you? For people who don’t even see you as one of their own?”
Evan felt something crumbling inside him. The weight of his double life, the guilt of his deception, the fear of abandoning the people he’d sworn to serve—it was a knot too tangled to unravel.
I can’t leave my people. I can’t live with that betrayal.
Leon moved behind him. Gently, she guided him to sit in one of the wooden chairs.
“If you are truly bound by your past… by vows you made as a soldier,” she said, her tone shifting, “I can grant you a new life.”
Evan looked up, shocked. “How could you possibly—”
“It's really simple,” Leon interrupted, her voice steady.
“A choice—I can grant you a life as Evan. Only Evan. You can live without a burden along with her.”
She leaned slightly forward, the void of her helmet feeling like an abyss staring into his soul. “All you have to do is make a choice.”
Leon laid out the choices. Her voice was calm, devoid of judgment, as if she were listing items on a menu.
“The first,” she said. “You give up your comrades. Simply bring as many as you can to a specified location. After that, you walk away. Your past is erased. You become Evan, and only Evan.”
She paused, letting the weight of the betrayal settle in the quiet room. The woman in the kitchen—his wife—hummed softly, oblivious.
“The second,” Leon continued. “You refuse. You keep your vows. You live out this life, knowing you are her misfortune. That every smile she gives you is built on a lie that will one day burn her world to the ground. Your child will never have a proper life—only the aftermath of a war their father helped start.”
Evan sat perfectly still. The internal war was a silent, vicious thing.
Betray my country? My comrades? For a woman? For a feeling? It sounded insane.
A weakness his trainers would have beaten out of him.
Yet the other voice, the one that had grown quietly over years of living this real life, whispered back.
What country? You serve greedy old men in Kaleos who see you as a disposable asset. You will never have a life like this there. You will never be a hero—you’ll be a secret to be buried.
He thought of his fellow spies. Men and women with the same hollow eyes, the same manufactured identities.
Wouldn’t they do the same? If they had this chance to escape, to have something real… wouldn’t they take it?
The rationalization was a cold, slick comfort. It coated his guilt.
Yes! There is no need for guilt. This is survival. This is choosing to live.
No longer would he have to cover for them with fear of being caught.
The image of his wife’s smile, the feel of her hand on his cheek, the future he could almost touch—it wasn’t just a fantasy anymore. It was a door held open, and all he had to do was step through.
The desire to be free of it all—the lies, the fear, the waiting—washed over him like a narcotic tide. It was intoxicating.
He looked up at the faceless figure before him.
“I accept,” Evan said, his voice hoarse but clear. “The deal. I chose the first option.”
—-
Leon sat on the rooftop, adjusting her position carefully. A deep, quiet weariness settled in her mind—not the exhaustion of magic, but the fatigue of a long and delicate manipulation.
She took a slow breath, letting the cool night air clear her thoughts.
At least the groundwork was laid.
But most importantly, her experiment had worked.
Her own flaw was a constant, nagging problem: she couldn’t mount a proper, direct attack.
She had twisted the rules and exploited loopholes in barrier magic, but in the end, all she could truly do was defend, deceive, or stall.
If she ever faced an opponent head-on, in a straight fight without room for tricks, she’d be vulnerable.
The issue was real, and it was large.
Still, amid the frustration, she had stumbled upon a possible fix.
Memories.
To an intelligent being, memories were the foundation of the self. They shaped decisions, personality, fear, and desire. To lose them wasn’t just forgetfulness—it was a kind of death.
The person who woke up without their past was, in every meaningful way, someone new.
So she had wondered: what if she targeted that?
If she couldn’t attack at all, she could steal from the mind. By weaving the concept of theft into a barrier instead of an attack, she could potentially reach in and take a person’s memories—or reshape them, or lock them away.
It wasn’t violence in any sense or even conceptually an attack.
She had finally found a method of offense that worked as a loophole.
But it came with an obvious limitation. It only worked against beings with higher intelligence, with a structured sense of self.
Against animals driven by instinct, stealing memories meant little. They would still lunge, still bite, guided by primal impulse.
Below her, in the safe house she’d guided Evan to, the first of his former comrades began to arrive.
He started playing his part well, his voice steady over the communication crystal, luring them in with talk of an urgent, secure briefing.
Leon watched it all unfold from the shadows, her perception extended through a thin, almost invisible barrier. It was a simple strategy, really. One often used on farms.
The Judas goat strategy.
Lead the others calmly to the slaughter, because they trust the one who walks ahead.
It was fitting, given the scenario.
Now that Evan was successfully turned, she had to do her job as well.
The real work was just beginning.
—
In a mansion at the capital, a man sat buried beneath mountains of paperwork. He slumped in his chair, a low groan escaping him as he pushed a stack of reports aside.
“So much work,” he muttered to the empty room. “Can’t a man just… not?”
The man was Eren Astra, known widely as the Demonic Swordmaster. A genius who had shot through the ranks at a pace few had ever witnessed. He’d earned his title not just for a swordsmanship that seemed to bend the laws of physics, but for a razor-sharp intellect guided by something deeper—an almost preternatural instinct.
Despite his fame, his current post felt like a cage: security general of the capital city. A prestigious title to most, but to Eren, it was glorified paperwork and patrol schedules. He’d never understood why his father, the Supreme Commander, had placed him here.
“Before you lead armies, you must learn to manage a city block,” his father had said, his tone leaving no room for debate. “Responsibility isn’t just strength. It’s administration.”
Left with no choice, Eren had agreed. But boredom had been eating at him ever since. His usual escape was to sneak away, leaving his long-suffering secretaries to handle the documents while he lost himself in sword forms in the private courtyard.
Today, assessments and trapped. The recent terror attack had locked him down. For a brief, thrilling moment, he’d been excited—finally, something real to deal with.
Only for jurisdiction to be snatched away by the Special Forces
Now he was left managing the dull, bureaucratic aftermath: casualty reports, damage assessments, security reroutes.
He sighed, letting his head thump onto the desk. Is anything ever going to happen?
Then his instinct flared.
It was a electric jolt up his spine, a primal warning screamed from somewhere deep in his marrow.
In one fluid motion, he was on his feet, his sword leaping from its scabbard into his hand.
A shimmering coat of aura ignited along the blade, casting sharp shadows across the paper-strewn room.
He could feel it. A presence. In his own study.
“Tch,” a voice echoed, seeming to come from the air itself. Disapproving. Almost annoyed.
“Why are you so sensitive? Either way, I don’t have much time.”
Eren’s eyes scanned the shadows, his grip tightening.
“I don’t know who you are,” he said, voice low and dangerous. “But you better be ready.”
He didn’t wait for an answer. He moved.
The slash was a blur of light, aimed not at a body, but at the center of the intrusive presence. It should have cleaved through the being.
Instead, it met an invisible wall with a sound like a struck bell.
The force reverberated back up his arm, jarring his bones.
Before he could recover his stance, before he could even process the rebound, something touched his forearm.
The contact was light, almost casual.
The voice spoke again, closer now, as if right beside his ear. “You should take care of the rest. If you want the Empire to live another day.”
Then it was gone.
And Eren’s world shattered into noise and blur.
His knees hit the polished floor. A deafening ring filled his skull, drowning all thought.
His vision swam, the study melting into streaks of color and shadow. As his consciousness fought to surface through the tidal wave of disorientation, his failing sight latched onto one final image.
A figure, already turning away.
A hooded cape. Jet-black armour.
And above the armored collar, where a head should have been… nothing.
His mind, trained and brilliant, scrabbled for a reference, a myth, a nightmare.
No…
It can’t be.
There’s no way…
The word formed in the chaos, dreadful and absolute.
A Dullahan.
