Kiba Yuuto stood frozen.

Five holy swords were now embedded in Kokabiel's body—each one a weapon of divine authority, once wielded by champions of the Church.

Just moments ago, they had been in enemy hands.

And now... they were ours?

Kiba couldn't believe how fast everything had changed. For a fleeting second, his instincts screamed at him to rush in and reclaim those swords. To take back what was stolen from the Church... and from him.

But his body wouldn't move.

Not because of fear.

But because of him—the one man standing atop Kokabiel.

Akira.

That alone was reason enough for restraint.

"Is that all, Kokabiel?"

Akira's voice was cold, almost bored. "How disappointing."

With one foot, he pressed Kokabiel's face into the dirt.

It wasn't meant to kill.

It was humiliation—raw, deliberate, and absolute.

Kokabiel snarled, his body twitching as he tried to lash out, but Akira didn't even flinch. His boot dug deeper, silencing the Fallen Angel's fury.

The onlookers held their breath.

Even Kiba.

Just a little ways off, three former priests—now nothing more than twisted shadows of their former selves—lay defeated. Kiba had handled them personally, cutting them down with the precision of a swordsman and the fury of a betrayed believer.

Akira had left them alone.

He'd known Kiba would come for them.

And now... the loose ends were gone.

"Your vengeance," Akira said, his tone low but steady. He pointed toward the darker edge of the ruins. "He's waiting over there."

Kiba's eyes sharpened.

He didn't need to ask who.

"...Thank you," he replied, voice hoarse with quiet resolve.

He understood what Akira meant.

During one of their past conversations, Akira had told him the truth—the one behind the Holy Sword experiments was in Kuoh. And now, without a single word of explanation, Kiba could feel it.

He was here.

Hidden in the shadows.

Waiting like a rat.

Kiba walked toward the darkness, his footsteps soft but purposeful.

And then—he saw him.

"Valper Galilei!!"

The name tore from his throat like a scream of pure hatred, echoing through the night.

The moment he locked eyes with that face, all the warmth vanished from Kiba's expression. His gentle, princely smile had disappeared.

What replaced it... was something dark. Something burning.

Valper flinched.

His plans had been unraveling from the moment Akira appeared. The alliance with Kokabiel, the theft of the Excalibur fragments, the carefully laid trap for the Church's swordswomen—all of it, crushed.

Kokabiel had fallen.

The five Holy Swords were no longer his.

All his hopes... ruined.

Now, his only option was to retreat. Regroup. Begin again from the ashes.

But before he could even take a step—

A golden-haired youth stepped into the light.

That face...

No, it couldn't be.

"You... who are you?"

Kiba stopped just a few meters away, his voice like a dagger cutting through fog.

"I'm the one who should've died that day," he said. "But I crawled back from hell—for one reason."

"To destroy you."

Valper's eyes widened. Panic surged into his voice.

"W-Wait! I can give you power! Real power!" he stammered, pulling a few small, transparent crystals from his coat pocket. "Holy Sword Factor Crystals! You want to wield the Holy Swords, right? I can give you that ability! I can help you fuse with them—become one with the swords!"

Kiba stared.

Those crystals...

They were extracted from the bodies of children.

His friends. Innocent boys and girls who only wanted to serve the Church. To protect the weak. To prove themselves worthy of wielding sacred blades.

They had believed.

Believed in God. In righteousness. In people like Valper.

And they were slaughtered for it.

"You... butchered them," Kiba whispered, his voice trembling.

"You slaughtered them like lab rats—just for that?!"

His eyes burned with grief and fury.

"DIE, VALPER GALILEI!!"

"—Come forth, my Sword Birth!"

The air changed instantly.

From the ground, shadows twisted and warped, giving rise to countless blades—shimmering swords of every shape and size, forming a graveyard of steel around him.

Hundreds—no, thousands—of magical weapons surged forth.

Each one forged from pain, grief, and wrath.

This was Sword Birth pushed to its absolute limit.

Fueled by hatred.

Empowered by loss.

And tonight, Kiba Yuuto's heart overflowed with both.

Valper stumbled back, hands shaking. "W-Wait, please—!"

But Kiba was already moving.

He summoned a crimson blade wreathed in heat—Flame Sword—and with a single slash, severed four fingers from Valper's right hand.

They dropped to the ground like dead twigs, the cauterized stumps hissing with embers.

Valper's scream tore through the ruins.

He wasn't a warrior. He had never endured real pain.

But this... this was agony beyond anything he'd imagined.

"You don't get to bargain, you filth," Kiba muttered.

Without a pause, he summoned a second sword—Ice Sword—and swung downward, cleaving the fingers from Valper's other hand.

Frost instantly encased the wound, freezing nerves and vessels alike.

The pain was cold, slow, suffocating.

Valper collapsed, sobbing and writhing.

But the punishment had only begun.

For twenty full minutes, Kiba didn't stop.

He didn't show mercy.

He didn't flinch.

And not a single person watching dared to interfere.

Not Irina, not Xenovia, not even Akira.

They had all seen what this man had done. And now they saw the result.

The boy they once thought gentle had become something else.

Not a devil. Not a monster.

Just... a sword.

A sword of vengeance.

Irina stood in stunned silence.

Xenovia gritted her teeth.

"He was... always like this?" she muttered.

"No," Irina replied.

"He was kind. Kind... and broken."

By the end of it, Valper Galilei was barely breathing.

Blood pooled beneath him, and his eyes fluttered open and shut as if his body could no longer decide if it wanted to live or die.

And Kiba...

Kiba shed a single tear.

Not of relief.

Not of satisfaction.

Just... emptiness.

"This... is for them."

With a final scream from the depths of his soul, Kiba raised one last blade and slashed.

Valper's throat opened in a crimson spray.

He convulsed once—twice—then fell still.

Dead.

The silence that followed was suffocating.

Kiba's shoulders trembled. He didn't cry. Didn't scream again.

Just stood there, sword in hand, as the last piece of his past bled out before him.

They're gone...

Even with my revenge, they're still gone.

And then—without even noticing—one of his tears fell, landing softly on the shattered stone beneath his feet.

It struck something small and shining.

A single Holy Sword Factor Crystal.

It glowed faintly.

As if... responding to the sorrow in his heart.

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