Transmigrated as the Villain Between the Heroine and the Villainess

He stood.

The world was a painful and a blurry mess, but he stood.

A collective gasp rippled through the assembled servants.

Elvara's hands were pressed against her lips, her eyes wide with a terrified awe.

Even Celestria leaned forward in her chair, the bored facade cracking to reveal a sliver of genuine shock.

Sebastian straightened his posture, the relaxed air of an instructor gone.

For the first time, he held the wooden sword not as a teaching tool, but as a weapon.

His eyes, calm and patient before, now held the sharp focus of a true warrior.

"You have a strong will, my lord," Sebastian said, his voice a low murmur. "I will honor that will by ending this with my full respect."

Azrael's mind was a raging storm. Pain was a constant, screaming signal from every nerve in his body.

But beneath the pain, his skill, 'Limitless Comprehension', was working in a way it never had before.

It was no longer just feeding him information about stances and grips. It was showing him the soul of his opponent's technique.

He didn't just see the 'Flowing Steel Style' anymore. He felt it. He understood its philosophy.

It was a style of absolute efficiency, of perfect defense that transitioned into inescapable offense.

'I can't beat the style,' he thought, his mind strangely clear. 'So I have to beat the man.'

He saw the fight differently now. It wasn't a sequence of moves. It was a conversation of intent.

He could see the path Sebastian would take before the butler even moved a muscle. He saw the subtle shift in his shoulder that telegraphed a slash.

Sebastian began to move. He didn't charge. He flowed forward, closing the distance with an unnatural grace.

The wooden sword in his hand seemed to disappear, becoming a faint blur aimed directly at Azrael's heart.

It was a single, perfect thrust, the culmination of the Flowing Steel philosophy. An attack that was both an offense and a defense.

It was a technique designed to end a fight before it began.

Azrael saw it coming. He saw his own defeat. His body was too slow, too weak, too broken to react.

He had only one option. A path that defied every rule of swordsmanship, every instinct for self-preservation.

He did not raise his sword. He did not try to move aside.

As the tip of Sebastian's sword rushed toward his chest, Azrael lunged forward. He threw himself directly into the path of the attack.

Clench. He bit down hard, preparing for the impact.

He accepted the pain to come. His goal was no longer to survive the fight, but to win the bet. To land one single hit.

At the last possible fraction of a second, he twisted his torso. It was a small, agonizing movement, but it was enough.

Instead of piercing his heart, the wooden sword slammed into his left shoulder.

CRACK.

The sound of his own collarbone breaking was sickeningly loud. A white-hot, blinding agony exploded through him.

His left arm went completely numb. But his forward momentum carried him through the impact.

He was inside. Past the point of the sword, past the perfect technique, past the impenetrable guard. He was chest to chest with the master swordsman.

Sebastian's eyes were wide with utter disbelief. No one had ever done this. No one had ever been so insane.

Azrael had no strength left for a punch. His arms were useless. But he had his will. He had his rage. And he had his head.

With the last ounce of strength in his broken body, he drove his forehead forward.

CRUNCH.

The impact was a wet, solid sound. It was the sound of cartilage and bone giving way. He connected squarely with the bridge of Sebastian's nose.

For a moment, the world stood still. The two of them were frozen in a grotesque embrace.

Then, a single, dark red drop of liquid fell from Sebastian's face.

Drip.

It landed on the pristine grass between them. A single hit. He had done it.

The adrenaline, the will, the rage that had held him together—it all vanished at once.

The crushing weight of his injuries came crashing down. The world dissolved into a swirling vortex of black.

He collapsed into a heap at Sebastian's feet, unconscious before he even hit the ground.

Silence reigned over the training field. Everyone stared, mouths agape, at the fallen boy and the bleeding butler.

Sebastian stood frozen for a long moment, his hand slowly coming up to touch his shattered nose.

He looked down at the blood on his fingertips, then at the unconscious form of his young lord.

He then turned to Celestria, walked over, and dropped to one knee, his head bowed.

"Matriarch, I have failed," he said, his voice thick from the injury. "My life is yours to command."

Celestria did not answer immediately. She rose from her chair and walked slowly across the field until she stood over her brother's broken body.

She stared down at him, her face an unreadable mask. The cold fury was gone, replaced by a storm of conflicting emotions. Shock. Disbelief.

And something else, something she hadn't felt in a very long time.

Pride.

"Get up, Sebastian," she said finally, her voice quiet but firm, stripped of its earlier venom.

The butler looked up, confused. "But, Matriarch… the wager…"

"You did not fail," she said, her gaze never leaving Azrael. "You were his whetstone. You were the mountain he needed to climb."

She knelt, her fingers gently brushing a strand of black hair from her brother's bruised face.

"Did you see it, Sebastian?" she asked, her voice almost a whisper. "He knew he couldn't win. Any sane person would have surrendered."

"He was reckless, Matriarch. Suicidal."

"No," she corrected him. "He was absolute. He saw his objective, and he decided that nothing was going to stop him from reaching it."

"He wasn't trying to win a fight. He was trying to win a war against his own fate."

She stood up, her expression hardening again, but this time it was not anger. It was a newfound resolve.

"For years, he has been a hollow shell," she said, speaking as much to herself as to the butler. "A puppet dancing on strings of grief and expectation."

She looked down at him one last time, a faint, almost imperceptible smile touching her lips.

"Today," she said. "Today, I think he has finally found a purpose."

She turned to the stunned maids. "What are you waiting for? Take him to his chambers. Call the royal healer immediately."

"Use whatever you must, I want him fully recovered." Her tone was sharp, an order not to be questioned, but it was laced with a new, unfamiliar thread of genuine concern.