Transmigrated as the Villain Between the Heroine and the Villainess

Azrael turned and left his sister's study, his broken body moving with the slow, deliberate pace of a man walking on glass.

He didn't look back. As he was leaving, he heard footsteps hurrying behind him. It was Elvara.

She was about to speak, her mouth already open, but his sister's voice, sharp as a razor, cut through the air.

"You. Remain here."

Elvara froze, turning back to face the Matriarch. Azrael didn't stop walking. He heard their conversation begin as he moved down the long, silent hall.

"You should know," Celestria's voice was cold and clinical, "that breaking this marriage contract will not be difficult for us."

"There will be some political whispers, but the House of Ashveil will suffer no real aftermath."

She paused, letting her next words settle. "However, we cannot say the same for your family. For you, there will be consequences from your own house."

Celestria's gaze flickered past Elvara, watching her brother's retreating form. She then focused back on the half-elf girl.

"I will make arrangements for your entry into the Royal Academy," she continued, her tone shifting. "You can live your own life again."

"However, it will not be the luxurious one you are accustomed to. A life at the academy means a life of hard work."

Her eyes narrowed slightly. "You have always been a freeloader, living off the status of others. That ends now."

She turned to leave, her business concluded. "Now go. Because of you, and my brother's foolishness, my schedule is even busier."

She was almost at the door when she stopped, her back still to Elvara.

"Elvara."

The name was spoken softly, stripped of its usual ice.

"I don't know what you did to him. I don't know if you manipulated him, or if he simply had a moment of clarity."

"But for whatever part you played in this change…"

She turned her head just enough to meet the girl's shocked gaze. "…thank you."

It wasn't rude. It wasn't arrogant. For a fleeting moment, it was the genuine voice of an older sister, grateful for her lost brother.

Meanwhile, as Azrael made his way back to his room, a familiar blue screen popped up in front of him.

['Mission Complete: Help Elvara.']

['Reward: 1,000 P.']

He let out a short, humorless laugh. 'Wow. So the best way to help her was to get her away from me. Figures.'

'At least I have something to buy, even if it's just a damn healing potion. I have hundreds of those in the mansion's storeroom. This system is stupid.'

He checked his balance. [Available Balance: 1,010 P]. It felt like a drop of water in a vast, empty desert.

A week passed. A week of relentless, torturous training.

His life became a simple, brutal cycle. Wake up. Train with Sebastian until he collapsed. Get healed by potions. Eat. Sleep. Repeat.

Kenji had only ever seen fighting in shows and the manga he drew. He had never understood the raw, visceral reality of it.

For the heroes in the stories, fighting was a way to show power. For him, it was about survival.

Every swing of the sword, every grueling exercise, was a step away from the executioner's block.

Sebastian was no longer a patient instructor. He was a merciless trainer, pushing Azrael to his absolute limit and then one step beyond.

Elvara was gone. She had left for the capital to take the academy's entrance exams.

The news of their marriage annulment spread like wildfire. He was now officially the fool who had thrown away a perfect political match. He didn't care.

His sister did not return to the mansion. She was, as she had said, busy, smoothing over the political ripples from the annulment.

Thinking of her, Azrael paused during a break, leaning on his wooden sword. According to the novel, the second most tragic character was his own sister, Celestria Ashveil.

Her life had been devoid of fun from the beginning. She was a prodigy, and the Ashveil family had treated her as such. She was an asset, not a daughter.

She was the ace of her generation at the Royal Academy, graduating at the top of her class with honors still spoken of in whispers.

Then came the Continental Sovereignty Gauntlet, a tournament held once every decade. At twenty, she entered and secured the rank of fourth strongest in the world.

Then, their parents died in a sudden, violent accident. At twenty-one, she had to take the reins of the entire Ashveil family.

She had shouldered a burden meant for a seasoned ruler.

She was twenty-five now and still unmarried. She never loved anyone. Her standards were impossibly high.

But more than that, the crushing weight of her responsibilities left no room in her life for love.

Speaking of love, she had only ever truly loved one person: the original Azrael.

She had protected him fiercely. She cleaned up his messes, silenced his critics, and punished his rivals, even when she knew her brother was at fault.

But a day came when she finally lost all hope for him. The novel was vague on the details, but something had happened.

Some final act of pathetic cruelty from Azrael had shattered her unwavering devotion. She had become ruthless, even towards him.

Kenji, now living in Azrael's body, didn't know the reason for that final break.

But he knew what came after.

After the hero killed Azrael, something inside Celestria had snapped completely. She went on a one-woman massacre at the academy.

At the time, the hero was not even half as powerful as she was. But the headmaster, the strongest human in the world, had personally intervened to bring her down.

Her punishment was a lifetime of imprisonment. But no prison could truly bind her. She eventually escaped, her heart set on a singular path of revenge.

The cycle of vengeance continued until she finally killed one of the hero's harem members, a girl he cherished.

That act triggered a break in the hero, unlocking a new level of power fueled by grief and rage.

And with that newfound power, he had finally hunted down and killed Celestria.

'Maybe… if I can avoid my own fate, her fate will be changed too,' he thought, a cold weight settling in his stomach.

'First my own life. Then Elvara's. Now my sister's.'

How many fates were tangled up with his? How many lives depended on the actions of a man who was never supposed to exist in this world?

'I'm being pressured,' he thought, his grip tightening on his sword. 'The weight of it all… it's suffocating.'