Chapter 473: Operation Pendragon, and the Face-off

(3rd Person POV)

Sable pressed her perception against the door — and just as her magic grazed the surface, a young man with strange whisker-like marks on his face happened to be passing by inside. He hadn’t been doing anything in particular. But he turned his head, almost casually, in the exact direction her magic was coming from.

She cut the connection instantly.

She opened her eyes. Her forehead was damp.

"Results?" Aldric asked.

"There was someone in there," Sable said, still feeling the cold of it. "Not Arthur. A young man — he had odd marks on his face. Like whiskers." She paused. "He sensed me."

"Sensed you?" Aldric frowned. "That’s nearly impossible."

"I know. But he did."

Aldric studied her expression for a moment, then shook his head. "You must’ve caught a ward by accident. Don’t read too much into it." He glanced at the credits still rolling up the wall. "We’re running out of time — once this crowd starts moving, we lose our window. Do you have any idea where Arthur actually is?"

"There’s a room marked Chairman’s Office," Sable said. "It was Master Lykan’s private room before Arthur bought the theatre. If Arthur is running things here, that’s the most likely place for him to be."

"Then that’s where we go." Aldric looked around at the others. "Sable — cloak us. Now."

Sable raised her hand. The magic that followed was «Void Shroud» — it folded all six of them cleanly out of perceptible space. No outline, no sound, no detectable mana trace for anyone below a significant threshold. It could only be cast once a day, and it lasted exactly eight minutes before it collapsed entirely.

They didn’t waste a second of it. Moving in tight formation behind Sable, they slipped through the corridors and reached the Chairman’s Office door with time still remaining.

Aldric caught Brom’s eye and gave a single nod.

Brom rolled his neck, dropped into his stance, and drove his mana through his body — a physical enhancement buff that hardened muscle and bone and made the man look even larger than he already was.

Boom!!!

The door didn’t open. It ceased to exist — blown inward in a shower of splinters that scattered hard across the office floor beyond.

Just at that moment, the last of Sable’s mana gave out and the «Void Shroud» dissolved around them.

She pressed a hand to her temple, chest rising and falling. "I’m out of mana... I feel dizzy."

"Here." Charlotte was already holding out a small blue bottle.

"Th-thanks." Sable took it and uncorked it, but shook her head slowly. "Even with this, it’ll take a while before I’m any use. I’m spent."

That was only half true. She was exhausted, yes — but she could push through it if she had to. What kept her back was something else entirely. A feeling she couldn’t quite name, sitting cold in her chest since the moment that young man had turned his head toward her magic. She didn’t want to step into whatever this was.

But Aldric didn’t know that.

"Understood," he said, with a nod that expected no argument. "Rest for now."

The smoke and dust from the ruined doorway were already beginning to settle. As it cleared, the room came into view.

Arthur sat behind the desk, elbows resting on the surface, fingers laced together just beneath his chin, watching them with the unhurried expression of a man who had been expecting a knock at the door for some time and wasn’t particularly surprised it had come through the wall instead.

Beside him stood the young man with the whisker marks — calm, hands loose at his sides, eyes moving across the group with quiet curiosity. And standing just off to the side, eyes wide with recognition, was Leonard.

"Looks like we’ve got some visitors," Arthur said, with a faint smile. "Though I’d have preferred you used the door."

Naruto glanced at the scattered splinters on the floor. "There isn’t much of one left."

"Aldric, Charlotte—" Leonard straightened, staring at the group. "What are you doing here!? And why did you blast our door apart!?"

"Leonard..." Charlotte’s gaze found him and then immediately slid away, something complicated moving behind her eyes.

Aldric stepped forward. "It’s been a while, Leonard."

"You still haven’t answered me," Leonard said. "What are you doing here?"

Aldric didn’t address that. Instead he smiled, easy and unhurried. "Actually, I’ve been thinking. We’d be willing to take you back into the party. What do you say?"

Leonard stared at him. "...Take me back!?"

"That’s right." Aldric’s eyes slid past him to Arthur. "All you have to do is stand with us against that bastard over there."

"I’m never going back," Leonard said flatly. "I already left. That’s done."

Aldric had clearly expected that answer. His expression didn’t change. "Hmph. Then I suppose you’re getting beaten along with him."

His gaze settled on Arthur, something sharp and ugly rising in it. "I haven’t forgotten what you did at the inn. Making a fool out of me in front of all those people." His grin came back, but it wasn’t pleasant. "Consider this long overdue."

He reached into his coat and pulled out a vial — swirling, deep purple, radiating something that felt distinctly wrong.

Leonard’s eyes snapped to it. "That potion — that’s illegal! That’s «Titan’s Wrath»! Do you have any idea what that does to a person!?"

Aldric uncorked it and drank it in one go.

The change wasn’t subtle. His frame seemed to expand, veins rising along his neck and forehead, the air around him shifting as his power climbed to nearly three times what it had been. As a «Sword Saint», he had already been formidable. Now he was something considerably more dangerous. He drew his sword and his eyes flashed.

Brom had already downed his own vial and was rolling his neck with a low rumble.

At the back of the room, Charlotte and Vera took their positions — support range, ready to assist. Cael stood beside them, fingers already moving.

Arthur watched all of this without particular concern. His eyes drifted to Naruto.

Before he could say anything, Leonard raised a hand toward him.

"Master Arthur." His voice was steady. "Forgive me, but — can you leave this to me?"

Arthur looked at him. "Can you handle them?"

"I’ve had three days under Master Naruto," Leonard said, and there was something in his eyes that hadn’t been there before — not arrogance, just a quiet certainty. He had a kunai ready at his side. And more importantly, he had something else. "I think that’s enough."

Arthur studied him for a moment, then leaned back in his chair. "They’re all yours."

Leonard stepped forward, putting himself between Arthur and his former party.

"You think you can take all of us by yourself!?" Aldric’s grin stretched wider, grotesque with all those veins pushing at his skin. "You’ve lost your mind!"

"I’m enough," Leonard said simply.

Aldric’s eyes went flat. "Then die." His figure blurred — closing the distance in an instant, sword raised.

Leonard murmured, "«Body Flicker Technique»—"

He was gone before the blade arrived.

Aldric’s sword cut through empty air. He spun, already recalculating — and found Leonard repositioned a few feet away. Before either of them could move—

Whoosh. Whoosh. Whoosh.

Three arrows. Vera, from the back, finding her mark without hesitation.

A moment later, Cael’s spells followed — two fireballs and a lance of ice, all connecting cleanly with Leonard’s body.

The room went very still.

Charlotte had gone pale. Sable’s hand was pressed to her mouth.

’Did he... die!?’ The thought moved through both of them at the same time.

Vera and Cael stood rigid. They had attacked with intent to wound — but they hadn’t expected it to land that cleanly. The silence that followed sat wrong in both of them, an uncomfortable weight pressing into their chests.

Aldric just grinned. His eyes were bright with it, the look of a man who had already decided this was over. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝒆𝒘𝙚𝓫𝙣𝙤𝒗𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

But then, something felt off.

Aldric and his party noticed it at the same time — and to their shock, what had been Leonard a moment ago dissolved into a poof of smoke, leaving behind nothing but a wooden trunk sitting in the middle of the room.

"Ho-how!?" Aldric stumbled back a step, thrown completely off balance.

That half second of confusion was all Leonard needed.

"«Rasengan»!"

The swirling blue orb at his palm was incomplete — not truly mastered, rough around the edges — but the concentrated mana packed into it was anything but. He had laced it through with a fireball and a wind working to compensate for what raw technique couldn’t yet provide, and the result hit Aldric square in the chest and sent him crashing into the wall hard enough to crack it.

"Urgh—!" Aldric hit the ground coughing blood. "What kind of spell is that!?" He was already pushing back to his feet, eyes sharp despite the hit. "Charlotte!"

Charlotte raised her wand immediately — but before the first word of the healing spell left her mouth, two kunai struck her hand in quick succession. The wand clattered to the floor. "Hng!"

"Bastard!" Aldric’s jaw tightened.

Brom was already moving, crossing the room in a low charge and swinging at Leonard with a fist that could have gone through a wall. Leonard jumped back. Brom kept coming — faster than he had any right to be with that potion still burning through him, each swing snapping the air where Leonard had just been.

"How long do you think you can keep running!?" Brom bellowed. "I can do this all day!"

Leonard’s hands moved through a sequence of signs.

A poof of smoke filled the room — and then there were twenty of him, standing in every direction, each one identical, each one watching Brom with the same calm expression.

"What — so many of him!? What is happening!?" Cael’s voice came out several pitches higher than usual, his eyes sweeping the copies in open panic.

"Hm—!" Brom clenched his fists, head moving from one Leonard to the next, trying to find the tells. There were none he could read. Whatever Leonard was doing, it was nothing like anything the man had ever pulled out in all their years together.

Nearby, Sable watched the fight from where she stood and felt the cold in her chest deepen.

’It’s not just the strange techniques,’ she thought, eyes moving carefully across the room. ’He knows us. He spent years watching every one of us fight — he built the strategies that kept this party alive. He knows how Aldric opens, how Brom overcommits, how Vera times her volleys, how Cael sequences his spells. He practically wrote the book on how the Six of Diamonds fights.’ She swallowed. ’I knew this task wasn’t going to be simple.’