Alpha Crucis pulled out her Sabre Rapière with sheer force as the blood gushed out of his body like a geyser, covering her once clean yellow and purple uniform.

  Stunningly enough, Lord Caliber was still on his feet. He was even staggering around, reaching out for anything to save him. But it was fruitless. After a dozen of baby steps, his legs finally gave out. He collapsed on the ground face first as he began to bleed out.

  Maria, still in her raw emotional state, watched her nephew being stabbed to death as she felt powerless.

  Apinae didn’t help much as she approached Maria to rub it in, “Ooh, he won’t be back in book three!”

  This received a well-deserved shove to the ground. She watches Alpha Crucis slowly approach him as she sees her nephew still fighting for his life as he slowly crawls away. Alpha Crucis also caught onto this by reversing her grip on the Sabre Rapière so she could stab him through the heart and end his life quickly.

  Lord Caliber and Kenneth Lee Boutonnière, or not real identity and alter ego. They were the same. They were both monsters. Also, there were monsters that Maria-- The Holy Mother had built. Watching somebody kill her creation would be justifiable but acceptable. She would believe that if it was ten years ago because it was not ten years ago.

  She's not the same monster she was back then. Even though he does not deserve to live for what he has done, it doesn't give anyone else the right-- including Alpha Crucis-- to take his life away from him without truly giving them a chance to redeem themselves and atone for his sins.

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  In this insane situation, she made not the right choice but the necessary choice.

  AMPELOS!

  Maria wrapped Alpha Crucis' body with vines again. But they hardened and grew around the Crucis Sentinel this time, transmuting it into an oak tree. For safe measures, she wrapped the downed Apinae in vines as well.

  At this point, she could kill both and just end everything, but she couldn't. Consider it a divine intervention on her part. But she cannot forget that Lord Caliber was still at fault.

  Taking a few deep breaths, Maria sifted through her hair and wiped her tears away as she laughed, walking towards the newly made tree.

  "See, there it is." Maria openly mocked, looking at the tree-embedded sentinel. "That is the same vengeful little girl that I have known. And I thought you were prim and proper to the core. You need to realize something: women, in general, are horrible creatures. You are a horrible creature. We are meant to disrupt and destroy men and what they have built. Why? Because we can. That's all we are to them."

  She then stumbled on Alpha Crucis’ Sabre Rapière that she dropped.

  Maria picked it up and examined it, "impressive. I see you have reoutfitted your Disjoncteur de Foi. It's a lot heavier than it was before. Told you to make a lighter, but you wouldn't listen." She analyzed it while tossing it on the ground.

  She then strolled over to the crawling and dying Lord Caliber, “I let you have this fight, Selena, and his blood debt has been paid.”

  Maria created a beautiful flower bed surrounding them with the snap of her fingers. Then, large red pedal leaves started to protrude out of the ground surrounding the two.

  Maria looked back at the struggling sentinel—possibly not for the last time— as the pedals enclosed them, “see you around, kid.”

  And with that, the huge rosebud formed, burrowing into the ground and leaving a big hole in the middle of the street.

  The Holy Mother and Lord Caliber escaped. Barely...

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