Crimson Afterglow Part 1

Crimson Afterglow (紅蓮の残影) is a side story featured in Gekkan Comic Alive.

Part 1
One day at the Barielle Mansion, Priscilla Barielle decided to read a story from a book that she described as being something like memoirs to Schult. Schult attentively listened as Priscilla began to recount the story of her ownself to him.

Over seven years ago before Natsuki Subaru was summoned into the world, there was a young girl of around 11-12 years of age called Prisca Benedict. She had crimson eyes, porcelain white skin, orange hair and wore a luxurious red dress. One day at her mansion, the girl who had named herself Prisca was readying herself for the visit of her brother, Vincent Abellux. She first went to eat a meal, which had been taste-tested by her poison tester. However, the poison-tester had been poisoned, and had hidden the effects of the poison from the girl called Prisca. As a result, both of them were poisoned leading to both of their deaths. However, it was quickly revealed that this Prisca was just a stand-in body double that the real Prisca had employed to ward off assassination attempts, which were common when it came to Vollachian nobles. Prisca, who had shown herself in the dining hall, knew that the maids present had conspired to kill her and were actually assassins. Prisca ended up in a scuffle with them, but with the help of her closest servant, Arrachia, they easily dispatched of them, with Arrachia using her Spirit Eating powers to burn the majority of them.

A short while after this incident, Vincent arrived at the Benedict mansion with his entourage. He was quickly brought up to speed with what had occurred earlier in the day, and when he asked Prisca what the origins of these assassins were, Prisca replied that she didn't have any idea. Vincent equally wasn't sure, though he offered Prisca that he would try and investigate about it when he returned back to his mansion. During their talk, they were interrupted by Cecilus Segmunt coming back from his patrol of the surroundings. He quickly took note of Arrachia, who was beside Prisca, and riled her up, provoking her into attacking him. Cecilus defended against her attack with one of his katanas, and pulled out a second one, holding it against Arrachia's neck before sheathing them again. Following this turbid exchange, Vincent commanded Cecilus to stop this, since he had no intentions of making enemies with Prisca yet. This wording didn't escape Prisca's ears, and she eventually asked him if it had begun. To which, Vincent replied that indeed it had, that the Emperor Selection Ceremony had begun, and that she too would need to come to the Imperial Capital.

Sometime later in the Imperial Capital Rupgana, Prisca, Vincent and all the other living children of Drizen Vollachia, the 76th Emperor of Vollachia, gathered in a building for the upcoming Imperial Selection Ceremony. As they waited for the Emperor to make his appearance, Lamia Godwin came over to greet Prisca and Vincent; however, Prisca didn't take too kindly to this, and told her to vanish from her sight. However, Lamia continued to taunt her, and brought up the attack that had happened back at her mansion, causing Prisca to burst out in anger. Eventually, after Lamia had moved over to talk to Vincent, the Emperor made his appearance. Nearly all of his present children kneeled as he walked through the building, however, several of them including Prisca, Vincent and Lamia did not bother to pay him any such respects. One of Prisca's older half-brothers, Rommel, took offence to this and called her out on it. However, Drizen was not displeased by Prisca and the others' lack of respect, rather, he was okay with it. He queried Prisca personally about why she hadn't paid her respects after he'd silenced Rommel, and Prisca replied that she saw no value in waiting upon him, and that he'd grown old. She brought up the mantra of the Empire, "The people of the Empire are Strong", mentioning to him that she couldn't think that of him, who was the person standing at the apex of those teachings. This response greatly pleased Drizen, and he then turned towards Rommel and offered him to try holding the Yang Sword Vollachia, which he had just summoned from mid-air. Rommel tried to grab it, however he was incinerated. Straight after Rommel's death, Drizen went to grab the hilt of his Yang Sword, however, he too was incinerated by it, having lost his qualifications as Emperor presumably due to having grown weak. As everyone else was occupied watching Drizen's death, Vincent called out to Prisca and after exchanging a brief glance Prisca grabbed the Yang Sword that had materialised by her without any hesitation. Similarly, many other Yang Swords had materialised by the other candidates, testing whether they possessed the qualifications to wield it. And so began the Emperor Selection Ceremony.

Part 2
A short time passed by after the Imperial Selection had started. Prisca, back at her mansion, reflected on how only eleven people, including herself, had been left standing after they'd unsheathed the Yang Sword. From the 32 candidates who'd been present at the ceremony, some of them had perished after being incinerated by their Yang Sword, whilst others had refused to even try to take ahold of it. Prisca quickly identified that from the ten people she was competing with, Vincent Abellux was her greatest threat. Which was why she'd allowed Lamia to visit her today, who came bearing a proposition of alliance. Lamia offered Prisca to join forces with her already growing coalition, which would eventually strike against Vincent, which included her infamous Pruning Corps. After some tense exchanges between them, Lamia mentioned to Prisca that she didn't need to give her reply yet, but the next time she came visiting, she'd be coming to hear it. Prisca quickly realised that this would occur after Lamia had finished with the "pruning"; and on that note, Lamia left the mansion. Arrachia, who had been hiding in the shadows keeping an eye on the exchange, came out of her hiding and asked Prisca if it had gone well. Prisca replied that it had gone neither well or bad. After some further conversation between the two of them, Arrachia asked her what Lamia had meant by using the term "pruning". Prisca responded that in short, Lamia was taking care of a few routine tasks to bring the Imperial Selection Ceremony back to normalcy, supplementing her reply with the metaphor of pruning leaves and branches from a tree.

A short while after Lamia left the Benedict Estate, she went to the Fitts Estate to visit her older half-brother Barthroy Fitts. Barthroy had been one of the dissenters at the Imperial Selection Ceremony who'd refused to even take the Yang Sword that had materialised in front of him. Along with him, another nine people had done the same following his persuasions. Lamia had told Barthroy that if she obtained the throne, she'd put Barthroy and those other siblings under her protection. The two of them talked about their agreement, in which Barthroy recalled how when she'd been younger, Lamia had asked him if there really was no way for them to not get hurt. That had led Barthroy to chose Lamia now to help carry out his gentler ideals for the country, and pit his forces, along with the other nine dissenters, against Vincent. However, Lamia had feigned her pact with Barthroy, and as they talked, had poisoned the wine he was drinking from. Barthroy died shortly after, realising just before he breathed his last that he'd been set up by Lamia, meaning that she could pass his death off as an enemy attack and gain total control over the other nine dissenters via fear.

A few moments after Barthroy's death, Berstetz Fondalfon arrived at the scene and reported to Lamia, his superior, that they'd taken care of establishing control around the Fitts estate. Lamia thanked him for his work, and the two of them continued with their plan, which would ultimately involve framing Barthroy's death as the work of the enemy to the remaining nine dissenting siblings.

Some time after achieving that goal, Lamia gathered her coalition forces which were made up of her Pruning Corps, the forces of the nine dissenters, some of her siblings forces who were participating in the Selection, and Prisca's forces outside of one of the Abellux castles where Vincent and his forces were holed up in. Prisca, who was stationed at the summit of a hill, looked down on the amassing forces realising that this would be the climax of the Imperial Selection. She began engaging in some idle talk with Arrachia, but was interrupted by one of her soldiers bringing her a message from Berstetz, instructing her to move her forces to the rearguard when the attack commenced.

Characters

 * Priscilla Barielle
 * Schult
 * Vincent Vollachia
 * Drizen Vollachia
 * Arrachia
 * Cecilus Segmunt
 * Berstetz Fondalfon
 * Chisha Gold
 * Lamia Godwin
 * Rommel
 * Barthroy Fitts
 * Palladio Manesque
 * Muspel