Chapter 236

The sky lay bruised and heavy, its potential brilliance choked by the thick, grey pall of war.

Not even the hardiest birds dared to navigate the vast, unending smog that coated the city in a suffocating shroud.

Below, dust motes danced in the weak, diffused light filtering through the haze, settling on heaps of shattered  bricks and wood.

Draco sat amidst the ruins, his gaze fixed upwards for a moment before dropping back to the devastation around him.

His voice, when he spoke, was a raw, scraping sound, like grit on stone.

"Is that the last of them?"

It was Dimitra who answered, her own face etched with fatigue and sorrow.

She stood before him, offering not a water bottle – but a small vial containing a shimmering liquid.

"It seems so," she confirmed, her tone hushed and heavy with sadness.

"The only ones still trapped beneath the rubble now are corpses. There's nothing more we can do here."

Draco took the potion, the cool glass a stark contrast to the grime on his fingers.

"I see. We did our best, Dimitra. Don't dwell on what we couldn't save." He offered the words of consolation automatically, his attention already captured by the vial.

He knew the drill.

With supplies cut off by the enemy seizing the city walls, everything had become precious, hoarded and rationed.

Potions like this, crude but effective restorative brews, were now the only way to keep going.

‘Sigh. This can't be good for me’ he thought, eyeing the viscous liquid with reluctance.

He swallowed it down in one gulp, the taste like a weird soda scraping his throat and sending a jolt of unidentifiable energy through him.

"Ugh, I swear I'll never get used to that," he muttered, grimacing as the aftertaste lingered like poison on his tongue.

The desperate scarcity meant even basic supplies were stretched thin; these rough-and-ready potions were a necessary evil, fueling weary bodies through the carnage.

A sudden, rhythmic scuffing sound drew his attention – the heavy drag of exhausted feet through debris.

Vasileios.

The figure emerged from the dust, stumble-walking like a man possessed by sleep deprivation. "Argh, I'm so tired! I need sleep, like, yesterday!" Vasileios groaned, letting his heavy shield clatter onto a pile of rubble before collapsing himself onto a relatively flat section beside Draco, his body slumping bonelessly.

"Since you made it back, I assume the others handled the evilus soldiers near the..." Draco began, letting the question hang in the air.

Vasileios just hummed a non-committal assent, burying his face momentarily in his arms.

He was beyond conversation, beyond anything but the bone-deep ache of exhaustion.

Draco understood.

Just hours ago, he'd been guiding terrified civilians away from the sieged city walls, coordinating with members of the Hermes and Ganesha familias to establish an evacuation camp in the factory district to the northwest.

He'd chosen that location specifically, predicting the evilus would target less defended areas, especially with the strongest adventurers concentrated around Central Park.

But his time there had been cut short.

The enemy's successful seizure of the walls had choked off outside supplies and necessitated a drastic reallocation of manpower.

His scanning magic, invaluable for locating survivors in collapsed buildings, meant he was urgently needed on rescue missions elsewhere.

Finn himself had sent word, confirming Riveria, Ais, and several members of the Astraea familia would be sent to bolster the factory camp's defenses, freeing Draco to leave.

He'd taken only Dimitra and Vasileios, and headed back into the heart of the destruction.

‘Good thing I wasn't there when Ais arrived’ Draco mused, a flicker of dark humor lifting the corners of his mouth.

‘With her strong feelings about dragons, especially black ones... I can easily picture a scenario where she mistakes me for a threat. That would've been... awkward.’

Just then, he noticed Vasileios staring at him, his gaze bleary but fixed.

"Hmm, something on my face?" Draco asked, wiping a hand across his dusty cheek.

"Nah, nothing," Vasileios mumbled, pulling his arms closer.

"You just... look like utter crap, Draco-nii."

Draco feigned offense, puffing out his chest slightly despite the exhaustion pulling at him.

"What do you mean? I am always handsome, regardless of the situation. Perhaps you should look in a mirror lately, my brother?" he countered playfully, injecting a touch of Alise's characteristic arrogance into his tone.

Vasileios snorted, burying his face again.

"Tsk. You're starting to sound exactly like a certain someone," he muttered, glancing almost instinctively in the direction he knew Alise and her familia members were working.

Unluckily for Vasileios, their eyes met across a pile of debris.

Not all of the Astraea familia had been reassigned to the factory district.

Alise, Lyra, Kaguya, and Ryuu were still actively involved in the city-wide rescue operations. Alise, straightened from helping a dazed civilian and fixed her intense gaze on Vasileios.

"What was that look, Vasileios? You were definitely thinking something disrespectful about me just now!" Alise's voice, sharp and accusatory, echoed through the immediate vicinity as she strode towards them.

‘What? Does she have the instincts of a wild animal, or something?!’ Vasileios thought frantically, his eyes darting to Draco in a silent plea for help.

Alise was one of the few people whose directness and piercing gaze completely flustered him.

"Ahem. So, Alise," Draco interjected smoothly, stepping forward slightly to draw her attention. "What are we doing to counter the spread of disease? With so many bodies and lack of proper sanitation..."

Alise turned her focus to Draco, her initial intensity softening as she considered his practical question.

"Hmm, I heard from Kaguya that the Dian Cecht familia is distributing medical supplies all over the city, trying to contain things. So it's not an immediate catastrophe... but," she began, and Draco knew he'd made a mistake.

Once Alise started talking, especially on a topic even tangentially related to her interests or perceived duties, it was notoriously difficult to get her to stop.

She had a tendency to branch off into multiple, often unrelated, tangents.

‘You owe me big time for this, Vasileios’ Draco transmitted with a pointed look.

‘Go. Now’

‘Thanks, Draco nii’ Vasileios responded internally, already fading back and quietly slipping away into the maze of rubble while Alise chattered away.

Draco dutifully nodded along, interjecting the occasional "Right," or "I see."

Somehow, Alise's discussion had spiraled into a commentary on the rapid spread of information – or rather, gossip – amongst the city's remaining civilians and adventurers.

"So anyway, that's the plan for the diseases," Alise concluded, before immediately segueing without a breath.

"But speaking of information spreading... have you heard the stories circulating since the factory district attack? They're calling one of the adventurers the 'Saint' and another the 'Ice Witch'."

"Hmm? A Saint and an Ice Witch, you say?" Draco prompted.

He'd heard echoes of the fighting further north.

"Oh, yeah! The Saint is apparently some little kid from the Loki Familia," Alise said, gesturing vaguely.

‘Oh, then the one being called Saint must be Ais’ Draco realized.

The description fit perfectly.

"Then I'm assuming the Ice Witch... is Vasiliki?" Draco surmised, the second nickname fitting the image of his sister precisely.

He'd briefly considered Riveria, given her powerful magic, but her alias as the "Nine Hell" was already infamous.

Vasiliki was the next most likely candidate.

"Exactly!" Alise exclaimed, puffing out her chest with unmistakable pride.

"Our little sister really left a strong impression on the onlookers! Blew those evilus soldiers away!"

Draco raised an eyebrow, a smirk playing on his lips.

"Little sister? Since when exactly did Vasiliki become your little sister, Alise?"

Alise didn't miss a beat.

"Since I decided it just now," she replied with typical Alise-brand confidence.

Draco could only stare at her for a moment, genuinely exasperated and amused by her sheer boldness.

"Just to clarify," he said slowly, his tone dropping into a teasing lilt, "when you 'decided it just now,' you decided this with thoughts of an adopted sister, right? Not... say... a sister-in-law?"

Alise's cheerful expression froze.

"What do you me..." The rest of her words seemed to catch in her throat as the possible implication of his statement finally registered.

Her face, covered in dust and sweat, began to turn a vivid shade of red that spread rapidly from her neck to her hairline.

"You...!" she sputtered, rendered momentarily speechless.

"Ahem. Sorry to interrupt your... flirting," a new voice cut in, deliberately flat and cold.

Lyra, her usually vibrant pink hair matted with sweat and dust, stood nearby, her arms crossed and an unreadable expression on her face.

For some reason, she didn't look pleased in the slightest.

"I think we're done here. There's nothing more to search in this section."

"We are not flirting!" Alise quickly denied, her voice still slightly strained.

"Yeah, yeah, whatever," Lyra replied dismissively, sticking a finger in her ear as if trying to dislodge something annoying.

"Just finish up so we can head back. I need a bath and something that isn't dried meat soon or I'm going to lose it."

"Ho! Is our cute pink-haired demon jealous of her captain?" Kaguya, appearing just behind Lyra, chimed in with a wide, knowing grin.

"I thought you were more into Finn, Lyra?"

"What nonsense are you spouting, Kaguya?!" Lyra yelled, dropping her hands from her ears and taking a step towards Kaguya, looking ready to physically assault her.

"Bring it, Pallum!" Kaguya egged her on, eyes sparkling with challenge.

They were all stressed, bone-tired, and emotionally frayed by the relentless reality of the ongoing disaster.

This sudden flare-up, this sharp exchange of playful insults bordering on genuine annoyance, was clearly an outlet – a way to momentarily expel the suffocating weight of their negative emotions.

"Whoa, whoa, relax, girls," Draco interjected before things escalated further.

Stepping between Lyra and Kaguya, he adopted an exaggeratedly dramatic pose, mimicking Alise's earlier self-important stance.

"I know, I know. I am the most handsome, charming man in the world, and naturally, lovely ladies would fight over me. But there's no need for violence! We can all share!" he proposed with mock magnanimity, hoping his ridiculous statement would break the tension.

His utterly absurd performance, coupled with the clear imitation of their captain, definitely caught their attention.

Lyra's aggressive posture faltered, Kaguya's grin widened impossibly, and Ryuu, who had approached alongside them, even let out a quiet chuckle.

Soon, all of them erupted into tired but genuine laughter, the sound jarringly out of place in the ruined landscape.

All, that is, except Alise, who was still struggling to regain her composure and did not find being impersonated while bright red particularly amusing.

"Sorry, Captain," Kaguya gasped between laughs, wiping a tear from her eye.

"It just... it sounded exactly like you, but funnier."

"Hmm." Lyra nodded in agreement, her anger dissipating, replaced by a weary chuckle.

The physical tension in their shoulders eased visibly.

After a few more moments of shared, stress-fueled joking, the brief respite ended.

The laughter died down, leaving only the silence of the wrecked city and the knowledge of the tasks still ahead.

It was time to leave this section of ruins and move on to the next, the grim search for survivors – or bodies – continuing under the oppressive grey sky.

A/N: Feel free to read ahead on pat3on and donate.