Back to the moment when Leo was fighting his final battle against Lafei—
Whoosh.
While Leo and Lafei unleashed everything they had—one revealing a Longinus he'd kept hidden, the other overloading her demonic power at the risk of tearing her own body apart—Yukino and Sharon were also locked in a fierce fight.
The monstrous, three-meter-tall ice princess's freezing breath howled through the room like a category-twelve typhoon. A raging blizzard swallowed the entire space, turning the vast chamber—large enough to withstand a full-power battle between Ultimate-Class Devils—into a world of pure white.
Everything was buried beneath ice.
Everything was frozen.
Sharon alone broke through that near–absolute-zero maelstrom.
Bang!Bang!Bang! Bang!
Wrapped in a shroud of pitch-black aura, Sharon charged straight into the storm. The super-low temperature didn't hinder her at all. Her bladed gauntlets flashed like a stunt performer's choreographed strikes, chopping apart every shard of ice carried by the blizzard.
Boom!
A massive iceberg roared toward her—just like the one Yukino had launched outside the Yukinoshita estate during their first encounter. This time, Sharon didn't dodge. She swung her vicious blades once and split the entire iceberg in half, shattering it like stone.
"You've gotta be kidding me…"
Clutching her stomach wound, Yukino couldn't help raising her voice.
Cutting an iceberg in one blow—she'd only ever seen Miyamoto Musashi do something like that.
Musashi could cut anything—Leo's Zenith Tempest meteorites, even the space around her. If Musashi were trapped here, this whole dimensional maze wouldn't last a second. A few swings and she'd slice through all the so-called trials and walk right out.
Sharon wasn't on Musashi's level, of course, but to Yukino she might as well have been a monster. It was a night-and-day difference from the last time they fought.
Facing such a relentless opponent, Yukino didn't dare let her get close. She kept widening the distance and channeled vast amounts of demonic power into her ice princess, forcing it to breathe more and more terrifying gusts of frozen wind, creating more blizzards and icebergs to slow Sharon down.
Just earlier, she had gotten caught because Sharon closed the distance for a split second. Sharon pierced her abdomen faster than Yukino could react. She couldn't afford another mistake.
With that lesson carved into her memory, Yukino poured demonic power into Ice Princess like water from a broken dam. The blizzard intensified—wilder, harsher, colder.
But even so, Sharon's black aura let her cut straight through it, ignoring the frozen landscape entirely as she advanced step by step.
One pressed forward.
One retreated.
And because one was a raging beast and the other was severely wounded, they met sooner rather than later.
Swish!
Sharon destroyed another iceberg and sprang toward Yukino, forcing her to stumble backward in panic.
A black arc of blade-light slashed through where Yukino had been standing an instant ago. It moved so fast it was like a streak of black lightning, splitting the air itself.
Sharon didn't pause. She swung her second blade down toward Yukino's neck, aiming to behead her on the spot.
At the decisive moment, a thick wall of ice surged up and blocked the killing strike.
Crash!
Sharon shattered the wall in a single blow. Ice exploded everywhere—but she couldn't pursue.
All those fragments froze in midair…
Then shot toward her like a rain of icicle knives.
Sharon had to halt her attack and leap back, dodging the barrage.
But the instant she escaped the ice knives, she crouched, kicked off the ground, broke the sound barrier, and rushed Yukino again.
"So persistent…!"
Yukino barely got to her feet, clicking her tongue in frustration.
This woman was absolutely not a real nun. Not even a real exorcist.
What kind of exorcist fought like this?
She was more like an assassin.
With no choice, Yukino raised more ice walls one after another in front of herself.
Crash! Crash! Crash!
Sharon tore through them with her savage blades, smashing each wall to pieces in flowing, almost dance-like motions.
Yukino tried the same trick again—controlling the shattered ice and launching it like knives—but Sharon wasn't falling for it twice.
"I've already seen that. It won't work on me again."
Sharon accelerated, choosing her angle carefully, weaving flawlessly through every shard of ice.
In seconds she burst out of the storm of fragments and appeared before Yukino, bringing her blade down in another brutal strike.
This time, when ice shattered, blood splattered with it.
"Ugh…!"
Yukino raised her hands. At some point a thick layer of ice had formed over them, serving as a shield. Sharon's blow shattered the ice completely and sent a jolt of pain up Yukino's arms, tearing skin and spilling blood into the air with the flying fragments.
Her throat tightened as she was thrown backward.
Sharon narrowed her eyes and charged again—silent, merciless, offering no chance to breathe.
Yukino lifted her arms once more, forming fresh layers of ice as fast as she could.
Crash! Crash! Crash! Crash! Crash!
Sharon hacked at her relentlessly. Each strike shattered the ice on Yukino's arms, each impact shaking her whole body and forcing her to retreat step by step, blood dripping down her hands.
Then—
Thud!
Sharon feinted, spun, and kicked Yukino hard in the side.
"Gah…!"
Yukino spat blood as her body skidded across the ice-covered floor, sliding until she slammed into a wall.
Her side and arms throbbed with pain. She gritted her teeth and forced herself up.
Sharon lowered her twin blades and walked toward her slowly.
"Still planning to keep fighting?"
"I'm not losing to the same person twice!" Yukino glared, wiping the blood from her lips. "I'm not giving up!"
"Your courage is admirable," Sharon said with a joyless smile. "But not smart. I heard the Yukinoshita family's second daughter was very clever. Turns out becoming a devil made you stupid."
"If by 'clever' you mean knowing when to bow my head," Yukino shot back, "then maybe you don't understand me at all. I don't lower my head for anyone."
"That much is true." Sharon nodded, still showing no emotion. "So you've accepted that I'm going to kill you?"
"Who wants to accept something like that?" Yukino said coldly. "I've already died once. I'm not doing it again."
"Unfortunately…" Sharon crouched down, ready to pounce. "That's not your decision."
She prepared to lunge.
Yukino's heart tightened. Her fists clenched.
Not yet…
Not ready…
I still need more time—
She exhaled softly and forced her body to relax.
"Can I ask you a question?"
"…What?"
Sharon hesitated, instinctively pausing her attack.
Yukino's voice was steady.
"Why do you fight for the Church? I don't think you're stupid enough to die for people who clearly hurt you."
"For someone like you—insane, yes, but not an idiot—to have such extreme hatred for devils… it doesn't make sense. Even the fanatics I've heard of only hate devils on principle. Unless they were harmed directly, that hatred never reaches this level."
"And yet your hatred isn't just hatred. It's obsession."
"I really don't understand why."
She continued calmly:
"My master said you were mentally unstable. I thought the same at first. But the way you reacted earlier… it didn't match that."
She remembered Sharon's earlier words clearly:
—You don't know anything.
That tone, that expression—there was something off.
"…What's the point of asking now?" Sharon muttered after a moment.
"I want to know."
Yukino didn't give her room to refuse.
Sharon gave a low laugh.
"Then let me ask you something. Why do you think it was the Church that hurt me?"
Her smile twisted.
"Why can't the ones who hurt me… be devils?"
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You can read up to chapter 151 on patreon.com/NiaXD.