Editing Seirei Tsukai no Blade Dance:Volume14 Chapter5 (section)

===Part 1===

"Stay here and don't try anything funny, Demon King of the Night&mdash;"

Restrained by spirit magic, Kamito was taken by the knights and violently thrown into a jail cell inside a military facility behind a metal door.

Est was confiscated and his hands were cuffed behind his back. Under such conditions, even Kamito could not resist. Besides, even if he could resist, he was out of options while Restia was taken hostage.

As the metal door shut, a magic circle engraved on the door's surface glowed.

(...An isolation barrier huh. What a pain...)

While lying on cold stone tiles, Kamito cursed inside his mind.

With that, even trying to find Est's location through the spirit seal's resonance would not be possible.

Crawling over the floor, he moved near the door.

He detected one presence on the other side of the door, apparently just an ordinary guard, not a spirit knight.

"What happened to Claire and the others? They're not getting rough treatment, are they?"

He asked the other side.

"You don't need to know."

The guard's cold voice replied.

"Is this attempted assassination on the emperor for real? What the heck happened at the imperial capital?"

"Shut up, you're being annoying."

This time, the door was kicked violently.

(...Looks like it's not someone with loose lips.)

Kamito sighed, sat up and leaned against the wall.

Throwing a tantrum here would be pointless. It would be wiser to conserve his energy and bide his time.

(...But things have gotten troublesome.)

The situation was too terrible.

Fianna was surely caught in some kind of power struggle and got framed.

At this rate, she might end up executed before a proper trial took place.

(...And it takes at least four days to hurry to the imperial capital from here.)

Also, even if he could hasten to the imperial capital, he would still need to find a way to get around the army's guards to rescue her.

...Before that, even getting out of here was a problem.

(Fianna...)

The image of the princess, who sometimes teased him and often encouraged him, surfaced in his mind, instantly filling him with impatience.

&mdash;At this moment.

"...to... Kazehaya Kamito&mdash;"

He suddenly heard a voice behind him.

Rather than coming from the door's opposite side, it felt more like a whisper by his ear.

Kamito looked at the door behind him. There were no signs of any one else.

All he saw was his own shadow.

However, Kamito felt a sense of dissonance from that shadow.

The cell's light source was a faint bit of light entering from a gridded window near the ceiling.

However, the shadow was projected with unnatural clarity against the door, looking almost like a human figure had been singularly cut out of space.

"...Say, could this be&mdash;"

"Quiet, fool."

The shadow raised a finger and made a hushing gesture.

Immediately realizing the shadow's true identity, Kamito lowered his voice as instructed.

"&mdash;Freya-sensei."

He spoke the name of his homeroom teacher.

Indeed, he had seen this many times during mock battle tests at the Academy.

The true identity of this bizarre shadow was Miss Freya's shadow spirit&mdash;Shadow Servant.

The shadow nodded then...

"My apologies for coming late. It is a little difficult to use a spirit inside an isolation barrier."

"Don't tell me you sneaked into the military facility?"

"No, I am not inside the facility. I am controlling this spirit at long range from somewhere in the Academy Town. The moment you were arrested, I slipped it secretly into your shadow."

After deftly unfastening Kamito's handcuffs, the shadow's shape distorted and passed through the crack under the door to go outside. Before long, a quiet unlocking sound was heard.

"Make it quick. Leave before the spirit knights notice."

"...Sorry, I owe you one."

Kamito immediately stood up.

"But are you sure this is okay?"

"What do you mean?"

"Surely, you're endangering your position by doing this&mdash;"

"All along, my loyalty lies with the headmistress alone, not the Empire."

The shadow on the ground shrugged and answered.