Fremd Torturchen - Volume 2 - Chapter 4

4

Heroine and Lover

Ever since he was a child, Kaito Sena had held heroes in disdain.

He had learned of the concept during the short period in which he’d attended school. For a time, he’d hoped that one would come and save him. But no matter how fervently he yearned, he continued receiving cigarette burns all over his body, getting his elbows scorched by lighters, having his toes broken, and being forced to beg for scraps of food from his father and his mistresses. As a result, he’d come to regard the concept of heroes as well as the various stories in which they appeared as ludicrous from the bottom of his heart.

Such a person couldn’t possibly exist.

If there existed someone who amended the injustices of the world, then Kaito’s pain and sorrow—or rather, his very existence itself—should have long been stripped away.

Ironically, the cruelty and pain accumulated within Kaito served to discredit the possibility that heroes existed. In a sense, he played the role of a villain, as his very life was the personification of how nonexistent and meaningless heroes were in the world.

Up to the day he was strangled to death, that perception of Kaito’s had never changed.

Furthermore, his new world was devoid of heroes as well. While it was a fantastical world rich with swords and sorcery, the land was plagued with demons. There were no noble crusaders or legendary champions.

The only person fighting was the Torture Princess, a peerless sinner.

She was absolute evil, standing atop a mountain of corpses—yet those she crushed were even more evil than she.

Kaito Sena held heroes in disdain.

However, as far as villains went, the same didn’t necessarily apply.

Kaito sat upon a plain chair in the stone bedroom. He had dark circles under his eyes.

Like a reenactment of the previous scene, Elisabeth was lying down on the bed in front of him. The crimson runes creeping along her body had grown even further, covering her pale body like briars. Periodically, she let out pained, feverish moans. Each time she did, Hina, who was standing at the ready by her bedside, stiffened up a little.

Other than diligently wiping away Elisabeth’s sweat, there was little she could do.

A few days had passed since they’d returned from the port town and released the two children to their relatives, who had come alongside members of the Church. However, in spite of Hina’s devoted care, Elisabeth hadn’t resumed consciousness. Powerless, all that Hina and Kaito could do was wait for her to wake up.

Not being able to do anything sucks.

Atop his chair, Kaito put strength into his crossed palms. His wound had properly healed, and the power he’d temporarily gotten ahold of had vanished. He no longer felt the sensation of the black dog’s tail on his skin.

Kaito still hadn’t talked to anyone regarding what had happened then. Hina had cast a number of questioning looks in his direction but ultimately decided to focus on nursing Elisabeth. Having agreed with her decision, Kaito had kept his mouth shut.

As he gazed at Elisabeth’s slender, crimson-encircled body, he let out the same murmur he had numerous times before.

“………Elisabeth.”

“………Excuse me.”

Suddenly, the two of them heard the voice of a third party.

Hina grabbed her halberd from the floor and then snapped to her feet. As she did, Kaito fluidly drew a knife from his pocket and pressed it against his palm. However, the presence on the other side of the door simply stood still, unmoving. Kaito and Hina tilted their heads.

For some reason, the other party seemed frightened.

“Hina, can you handle this?”

“Of course. Master Kaito, you should stand somewhere you aren’t visible from the doorway.”

After confirming that Kaito had taken cover, Hina approached the door and quickly threw it open. She swung her halberd, pressing it accurately against the scruff of their neck. The black mass threw up its hands in alarm.

A grieving voice called out from beneath a hood.

“I—I come in peace! I’m a bystander and an ally! I am your humble Butcher, friend to gourmands and vagabonds alike! I bring delicious meat! Every day! That’s right, it’s me!”

“Oh, hey, it’s the Butcher.”

“Me friend!”

“Please relax. I’m very sorry for my conduct. However, um…I believe that due to Elisabeth’s poor condition, we requested to put a hold on deliveries for the time being.”

Hina tilted her head to the side. The Butcher nodded in assent. He slowly lowered his hands and then brought the large bag covered in X-shaped patches he constantly carried with him into the room.

Perhaps in relief, he clutched his chest as he cast a pained gaze at Elisabeth.

“Oh, poor Madam Elisabeth… How could this become of a lady with such vigor?”

“Sorry, but she still hasn’t woken up. If you came to wish her well, then you’re out of luck.”

“No, that wasn’t my intention. I came here on a delivery—to deliver meat.”

“But we placed a hold…”

Hina’s reply fully conveyed her bewilderment. However, the Butcher shook his head back and forth.

“Indeed, my lovely Ms. Maid, you did put in such a request. But if Madam Elisabeth awakens and finds herself without fresh meat on hand, I think she would be sorely disappointed.”

“…Mr. Butcher.”

“It is disgraceful for a butcher to allow a client to go hungry. I have brought her usual selections with me, and as for payment… If it goes bad before Madam Elisabeth finds herself able to eat it, I will waive the fee.”

“Butcher, man, you…”

“Madam Elisabeth is quite the faithful patron of mine. And it brings me great joy when she cries out, ‘’Tis delicious!’ as she does. I pray that she recovers quickly that she may eat meat to her heart’s content once more.”

Tugging on the edge of his hood bashfully, the Butcher looked down and whispered rapidly. Kaito and Hina glanced at each other in surprise. They then spoke to the Butcher, their eyes full of emotion.

“My deepest thanks, Mr. Butcher. As Master Kaito’s eternal lover and servant, the spirit with which you carry out your duty has resonated deep within my gears. The thought alone is enough. I will gladly pay the fee out of my wages, so please accept it.”

“No, I’ll pay it. Thanks, Butcher… I’m sure Elisabeth will be overjoyed.”

“No, no, no, I’m simply doing my job. Hee-hee-hee, huzzah, huzzah! Success!”

“Hold up there.”

The Butcher danced around in delight. Realizing that he’d probably foreseen this turn of events, Kaito looked at him with half-dead eyes. However, after dancing and shaking his posterior around in joy, the Butcher suddenly stopped with a serious expression.

“Now, now, you two. You really don’t need to wear such gloomy expressions! Knowing Madam Elisabeth, she’ll be back on her feet in no time! Ah, that’s right, I also have a get-well gift for her!”

The Butcher rustled around in his bag. At the end of the day, it seemed that his concern had been real. Kaito and Hina watched over his actions warmly. The next moment, though, their faces froze over.

The Butcher had pulled out a huge, droopy, mulberry-colored cut of meat.

“Aren’t you surprised? It’s troll liver!”

“Get out.”

“They say it makes the body grow big and strong.”

“You’re sounding like a swindler.”

“I am no swindler! I am a butcher! Everything I sell is as genuine as can be!”

“Ah, but my dear fellows, don’t they say that some things are problematic precisely because they are genuine?”

This time, for sure, Hina grabbed her halberd, and Kaito cut open his palm.

Hina positioned herself to protect the other three. As he protected Elisabeth and the Butcher, Kaito turned toward the window from which he’d heard the easygoing male voice.

At some point, its slatted shutters had been cut open, and the man responsible for butting in on the conversation was sitting on its frame. The strange man had bandages draped all over his body, and he was pressing the soles of his feet together. He lifted his silk hat.

“My a-apologies, is this a bad time?”

The man was strangely slender. Other than the hardened, dirty-looking bandages and the silk hat, he wore nothing. His mouth, which peeked out just barely from beneath the bandages, was curved into a crescent-shaped grin as he introduced himself.

“I, my dear fellows, am the Marquis! I apologize for this unseemly state I’m in! I was on the receiving end of some pu-nish-ment from our lovely Majesty the G-g-grand King, you see? Fuuuuck that infernal bitch! Damn, damn, damn, damn? Damn! Damn her to hell! M-my apologies.”

The Marquis gave a quick bow. A silver, brain-shaped needle was glittering on his nape.

Goose bumps ran down Kaito’s spine. Upon closer examination, the Marquis’s skin under his bandages was hideously burned. His white bandages were stained yellow with bodily fluids, his hair was missing, and his eyes were exposed and swollen. But what scared Kaito and Hina more than the details of his punishment was his name.

As the fourteen demons go, the Marquis is pretty high up there.

He wasn’t a foe that the two of them could hope to take on. Even so, they stood in front of the bed to protect Elisabeth and the Butcher. His voice hoarse from tension, Kaito pushed out noise from the back of his throat.

“What do you want, Marquis?”

“Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha, ho-ho-ho-ho-ho, heave-ho? Eep!”

As he sang, the Marquis leaped off the window frame and dropped talkatively down to the floor. He then shook all over, like a stray dog. Immediately afterward, though, he rose up straight, as if yanked by a string, and placed a hand on his chest.

Kaito narrowed his eyes. Something was springing out from beneath the bandages.

Is there something stuck in his chest?

“P-p-p-p-p-p-p-please look, if you woul— No, no, no, stop it, stop it, I’ll stop, I’ll stop, forgive, forgive me, I’ll do anyshing, please, no, stop, aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!”

As he uttered words of reluctance and fierce screams, the Marquis grabbed the thing springing out from his chest and yanked it forward without pausing. Before Kaito and Hina’s eyes, both of them stunned into silence, he tore himself from his chest to his crotch and pulled out something rectangular. It was a dressing table, and no small one at that, adorned with a snakelike chain.

“Gah… Ack, argh… Blergh…”

Blood and mashed-up organs dripped off the mirror’s frame.

As the Marquis frothed at the mouth and spewed up mucus, he used the last of his strength to stand the dressing table up on the floor. His wound had probably had magic applied to it beforehand, as it immediately sealed up.

Still propping the dressing table up, the Marquis fainted, his eyes rolling back in his head.

The mirror was filthy, covered in his blood and tallow. Suddenly, an ominous light burned within it. Then a scarlet figure appeared. Cheers, upbeat music, and most distinctly of all, a beguiling female voice rang out.

“So is this thing on? Oh, not yet? Is that so…? I feel as though it should have been properly activated. Are you certain? Oh dear, my, it is on! You fool, I’m through with you! Now then, begone! …And as for you, Elisabeth, how do you do? So sorry for all the commotion.”

The Grand King shook her crow-feather fan and smiled. However, she seemed displeased with the image she was projecting and moved her head around in search of an angle that better showed off her beauty. Each time she did, the ample breasts peeking out from the top of her dress jiggled precariously.

As carefree as her behavior was, her presence was as sinister as ever.

“…Fiore, the Grand King.”

Kaito groaned in a low key. The blood and tallow were stuck especially thick near the mirror’s edges, so he couldn’t get a good sense of the Grand King’s surroundings. However, there appeared to be a great throng of people behind her.

He couldn’t tell what was going on, but occasionally he heard voices calling out the Grand King’s praises.

Finally satisfied with her face’s angle, the Grand King nodded. She adjusted her hair and then sighed.

“Oh, I had the perfect introduction prepared and everything…but I suppose things don’t always go according to plan. In any case, I had something to discuss with you, so I had the Marquis bring over a mirror for me. Is he still alive over there? If he’s not too incontinent, would you be so kind as to praise him for me? His ability to control minds is similar to mine, and on top of that, he’s quite the narcissist. He’s a very bad boy, who rarely does as he’s told. Recently, though, he’s been serving as a rather obedient mutt. I’m really quite grateful.”

Her voice sounding truly appreciative, the Grand King inspected the blood running down the mirror from its reverse side.

The cheering from behind her had grown conspicuously rowdier. She turned and then waved and blew a kiss into the air. She then turned back toward the mirror before joining her hands in front of her face.

“Ah, that’s right. I mustn’t let the Marquis’s efforts go to waste, so I really ought to get to the point. With the second Sacrifice having taken hold successfully, I plan to take the Marquis over there, the Grand Marquis, and over a thousand of my underlings and familiars and boldly attack your castle—but that would cause you some problems, wouldn’t it, Elisabeth?”

The Grand King smiled sweetly and tilted her head to the side. Her eyes filled with compassion, she snapped her fan shut. Then, with the poise of an empress, the Grand King Fiore pointed it directly at the mirror and made her haughty invitation.

“Fleeing will do you no good. I will track you down to the ends of the earth, you see. You are a fish on my hook, and as such, I have a proposition for you. Bend the knee and serve me, little princess. I doubt you’d properly listen to my orders if I stuck a needle in you, so I’ll simply accept you as you are. You would make a fine pet. I love all who are strong, not just men, and you…you aren’t half-bad.”

As far as the Grand King was concerned, that was probably one of the highest compliments she could give. Kaito and Hina frowned and looked at each other. Unconcerned about their reactions and Elisabeth’s silence, the Grand King went on.

“In fact, I’ll even allow you to bring that automaton with you as a dowry. As for that lover boy, I could do without him, but I’m sure I can find somewhere to store a piece of rubbish or two. And I’ll treat you well. After all, now that I think about it, you are the beloved daughter of my dear friend Vlad. I’ll cherish you from your head to your toes, as if you were my own child.”

“That’s not the kinda thing you’re supposed to say to your children.”

“While I am fond of Lady Elisabeth, I am Master Kaito’s maid and Master Kaito’s alone.”

Kaito and Hina spoke simultaneously. However, the Grand King paid them no heed.

Loud voices of praise rang out once more from behind her. She turned toward them and waved merrily. As she did, the blood and tallow staining the mirror dripped lazily onto the floor.

Then the Grand King turned back toward the mirror. Upon seeing her face, Kaito reflexively frowned.

Her expression had changed so drastically that he almost thought she was a different person. When she spoke, her features looked so elegant that she reminded him of La Guillotine.

“Now then, Elisabeth, enough with the tomfoolery. Let’s speak earnestly.”

The Grand King inhaled quietly and then took her time before continuing to speak seriously.

“The Church won’t save you. You will die. I will kill you, and you will die. Why, then, do you still insist on fighting? You have the right to stain yourself deep to the bone with evil and the power to do so, as well.”

Her thoughts inscrutable, she spoke on in a kind motherly tone.

“…Perhaps a story is in order. When I was a child, a good-hearted, foolish gardener caught my eye.”

Suddenly, the surface of the mirror wavered. A moody young girl and a gardener with a face that looked practically like a squished frog—but with a simple, genial expression—appeared on it.

The Grand King’s voice carried on.

“Day in and day out, the adults in my life showered me with sweet, affectionate lies. They hated my father, who’d come into wealth suddenly, but no matter what happened, they kissed up to him and constantly visited nevertheless. I was like a little queen. No matter what I did, the people around me never scolded me…but he alone did, and to make up for it, he never lied to me. ‘If you do bad things, punishment is sure to come, young miss.’ ‘God is always watching you, so you must strive to be a good person.’ Oh, what foolish things he said to me. But I liked that about him… Oh, I did. Laughable, isn’t it? I liked that about him.”

The Grand King spoke in a subdued voice, almost as though she were embarrassed. The next moment, however, a grim spectacle flashed across the mirror’s surface.

The man from before had been stripped naked and hung up from a tree. His body was swollen so badly he looked like a fresh-baked loaf of bread. He had been struck all over and was dying.

A young girl carrying sweets was looking up at him in a daze. The basket in her arms had enough baked sweets for two, so it seemed she’d been planning on sharing them with someone.

“But he died after being framed for a crime by the other servants. They said that he’d stolen my mother’s golden comb and went out womanizing with the proceeds from selling it… What a lark. No other man was as straitlaced and devout as he, but…nobody lent an ear to that unattractive man’s clumsy explanations.”

The basket tilted over, and the baked sweets tumbled out. They rolled along, accumulating dirt from the ground as they went.

Then the image faded away. The Grand King returned to the frame.

Her lips were twisted ever so slightly, and her eyes were narrowed, as if she were glancing into the distant past. However, she eventually shook her head lightly from side to side, as if to say there was no use crying over spilled milk.

“It’s a trivial little tale. Yet, as a fable, I find it ever so relevant. Elisabeth, some day you, too, will understand. No matter how we amuse ourselves, live out our days, and die, that’s all there is to the world. Good, evil—it’s all the same. None will praise us, and none will punish us. And for the world to condemn you and then refuse to reward you for your efforts…I can’t bear to sit by and watch.”

The Grand King then brought her story to a sudden, somehow lonely end.

“You remind me of myself, in my youth.”

After hearing what she had to say, Kaito gulped.

Her thoughts aligned with his, if only a little.

The Torture Princess needed to atone. And she deserved to die grandly atop the pile of corpses she’d created. But was the punishment truly designed to shove all the responsibilities onto her and then look away?

I, for one, don’t think it is… And she’s right. I can’t bear to just sit by silently and watch it, either.

Kaito bit down on his lip. Elisabeth had yet to respond even once. Even so, the Grand King finished talking. She turned around, and her crinoline dress shook as she walked away.

Pulled by her rings, a number of underlings followed after her.

The mirror had cleared up, and the scene behind her was finally visible.

“—!”

As he saw it, Kaito suppressed an intense urge to vomit.

The Grand King was inside a massive circus tent. Countless men and women clamored from the audience. They were weeping, fervently clapping, and shouting out the Grand King’s praises.

The audience’s gaze was focused on a circular stage, atop which was a carousel. It was decorated as colorfully as a cake, and the people riding its blade-maned horses had their mouths stuffed with barbed wire. An underling with a bag over its head was supplying the carousel’s power and changing the speed at which it cranked the carousel’s handle on a whim.

Each time the wooden horses jerked up and down, the oscillations of their victims’ bodies caused their cuts to deepen and fountains of blood to spill forth.

The men and women in the audience raised their voices frenetically. However, one of them raised their voice a beat too late, possibly due to shock. An underling dragged her up to the stage. Her fierce screams were cut off when her mouth was stuffed full of barbed wire.

The Grand King turned around. The chains on her hands rattled as she raised them to gesture to the Hell behind her.

“Good, evil—it’s all the same.”

“She’s a monster!”

Kaito retracted what he’d thought earlier. He couldn’t agree with a single thing that came out of that woman’s mouth.

Anyone who enjoyed a spectacle like that was worthless. Kaito could have said it aloud. However, there was nobody there with the power to convey the truth of those words to that arrogant woman.

The Grand King spoke softly, as if she were looking down from above on humanity like they were worms.

“We have the right to oppress them, Elisabeth.”

“What do you think you are, sow, a god?”

A sharp noise rang out, and a lance pierced through the mirror’s face.

Shattered fragments of silver glittered as they danced through the air.

Awakened by the impact, the Marquis’s toes scraped against the stone floor when he took the attack after it passed through the mirror. He somehow managed to remain standing, supporting the dressing table all the while. From beyond the mirror’s cracked surface, the Grand King’s smile grew even deeper. The image she now gave was quite twisted, and a cold voice bored down on her.

“None possess that right. Not you, nor I, nor the people, nor kings, nor gods possess it.”

As he turned his gaze toward the source of that forceful declaration, Kaito breathed a sigh of relief.

A beautiful woman was standing atop the bed, as sharp as a blade.

“Elisabeth.”

The bondage dress she wore, crafted from her mana, seemed to be on the verge of dissolving. Its black cloth, which barely covered her body, hung in the air with the uncertainty of a shadow. Her skin was even more exposed than usual, and it was covered in the invasive crimson runes. However, her violated body didn’t stop her from looking down on the Marquis.

She clicked her tongue and then went on a displeased tirade.

“And who is it you’re saying you were in your youth? What a joke, Grand King. Care not to misunderstand me. Worldly rewards have naught to do with my actions as the Torture Princess. All I’m doing is paying the fee for the plate I licked clean, the plate topped with meat and blood and pleasure. A fattened sow such as yourself who refuses to acknowledge the annihilation waiting at the end of her road of slaughter and tyranny has no right to speak.”

“Elisabeth, you…”

“Why have you failed to notice? Good and evil—all the same? What a riot. Evil carries with it retribution. What you try to play off as the truth of the world is naught but your own arrogance.”

Elisabeth stared straight at the Grand King, her gaze filled with deep, frigid scorn.

With her animosity as bare as a wolf’s, the self-proclaimed sow carried on.

“Don’t use the past to justify yourself. All you’re doing is taking a single convenient aspect of it and speaking as if it is a unilateral truth. You know, Grand King, I pity you. You can’t bear to sit by and watch? Spare me your mercy. If you wish to torment me, then do so. If you wish to kill me, then do so. In any case, my death will be a cruel, solitary one. So be it. However, I’ve no intention of going down quietly. Should you cut off my head, I shall latch on with my teeth and rend you limb from limb.”

Her position was overwhelmingly disadvantageous, and Elisabeth’s face contorted even further.

With a smile the very picture of evil, she made one more declaration.

“I look forward to it, Your Majesty the Grand King! Let’s see just how far the face of a hag who forces others to praise her can twist!”

“…Don’t get all cocky at being shown a bit of kindness, little girl.”

The Grand King’s mask ruthlessly peeled off. Her beautiful, composed, showy-but-merciful expression had vanished.

As she turned toward Elisabeth, her sinister appearance truly befitted the demon she was.

“I’ll make a declaration, then. I won’t let you die peacefully—I will ravish you, violate you, rip out your intestines while you yet live, put them back, and grant you all the pains this world has to offer until you desperately beg and plead to me, cursing your own existence.”

“Splendid, what a fitting end for a torturer! But as you have your fun, the world will no doubt strike back at you…and I would have it no other way, Grand King. Here in my castle, I shall wait for my death and for your blood to be spilled.”

“You bark well! I hope you won’t regret this, Elisabeth Le Fanu.”

The Grand King snapped her fingers, and the light faded from the mirror’s surface.

As it did, the Marquis pitched forward. His whole body trembled and convulsed as he groveled on his hands and knees. However, he suddenly placed his hands on the ground and then leaped high into the air like a grasshopper.

Worried that he was planning to vomit out his heart, Kaito and Hina put up their guards. However, the Marquis successfully landed on his feet, gave a deep bow, and began awkwardly walking toward the window.

Hina aimed her halberd at his back but then lowered it. Kaito nodded, agreeing that she’d made the right decision.

The Marquis has the power to control minds. Honestly, I’m not sure if he can use it while the Grand King is controlling him, but…we shouldn’t carelessly attack him.

The Marquis scrambled over the window’s frame and then vanished from sight as though he’d fallen.

At the same time, Elisabeth collapsed to one knee atop the bed, her power spent. Kaito and Hina gasped.

The first one to react had been the Butcher. He’d leaped out from the shelves that he’d hidden himself in to support Elisabeth. He shouted as he held her shoulders in his scaly arms.

“Madam Elisabeth, please snap out of it! Look, it’s me, the Butcher! Your friendly neighborhood Butcher has you! Come now, Mr. Dim-Witted Servant, Ms. Lovely Maid, make haste!”

“I’m coming! Elisabeth, are you okay?!”

“Lady Elisabeth, please don’t push yourself! You must lie down!”

“My apologies. I’ve caused you all trouble… These runes truly are an annoyance.”

Elisabeth laid down on the bed, and Hina pulled a blanket over her. As her head sank into her pillow, Elisabeth gazed at her two servants.

Her face lit up a tiny bit. For an instant, her eyes softened with the distinct shape of a smile.

She then let out a small breath. She spoke softly, almost as if she were an aged king discharging an important adviser.

“The situation is as you heard. Over a thousand foes now make for the castle. I intend to fight, but I’ve no wish to get you lot mixed up in it. If you wish to flee, then do so. I’ve lived the solitary life of a wolf, and I shall die the pathetic death of a sow. All on my own. There’s no need for you all to come with me—you may help yourself to whatever riches you please as you go.”

“What’re you talking about, Elisabeth?! That’s nonsense!”

“I concur. Think about what you’re saying, Lady Elisabeth!”

“Hina, you’ve served me well. I shan’t forget your delicious cooking, nor how devoutly you nursed me… From here on out, live as you wish, with as much energy as your heart desires. I wish nothing but happiness upon you… And as for you—”

Elisabeth then looked up at Kaito. She snorted and then spoke quietly but firmly.

“You fool… You utter imbecile…”

“Geez, Elisabeth, even now, of all times?”

“You had the fortune of obtaining a second life… Just stop already. It’s…fine.”

Kaito swallowed. A gentle smile spread across Elisabeth’s face before him.

“You’ve done enough.”

For a moment, Elisabeth reached out. Right as her elegant fingertips were about to touch the wound Kaito had inflicted on his palm, though, she stopped and tightly grasped her own hand.

Gazing at Kaito and Hina both, she continued speaking in a distant, hazy voice.

“Don’t let yourselves be chained down by anything… Serve only…yourselves… ’Tis…for the best. I…”

Her eyelids slowly drooped. Kaito and Hina—Kaito in particular—swallowed down the words that were leaping into their mouths. Elisabeth, as if in a dream, continued speaking, her eyes hollow.

“I killed, I killed… And I continue to kill… My father, the…demons…”

Then she gently fell asleep.

Even assailed by pain and extreme fatigue, she had rejected the Grand King’s invitation. She fell back into a comatose state. As he looked at her sleeping face, Kaito ground his teeth so hard they could have cracked.

He desperately fought against himself to avoid letting out the anger bubbling in his chest.

What do you mean, there’s no need for me to come with you?! What do you mean, I’ve done enough?! We’ve still got plenty of time left together, right? I told you that, didn’t I?!

“And hey, you bringing me back to life and summoning me here must have been some kind of fate… So until you start walking the road to Hell, I’ll try and stick by your side for as long as I can, even if I’m the only one.”

Kaito had once said that to Elisabeth.

Elisabeth would die alone. Not even a demon would be by her side then. But perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad for one human to stay by her side until that time came.

Throughout Elisabeth Le Fanu’s bloody life, she was accompanied by a single foolish servant.

Kaito had thought that sounded just fine.

And there was one other important truth that he recalled.

The Torture Princess had taken pleasure in killing and slaughtering her people. Perhaps her heinous deeds, committed without fear of God, were all for the sake of extending her own life.

Or perhaps they were for the sake of defeating her “father,” whose power and allies had grown well past the point where any normal person could stand against him.

Her motives would remain a mystery.

She hadn’t once said.

“Mr. Dim-Witted Servant…are you all right? That’s quite the face you’re making.”

“…Master Kaito, pardon me, but—”

Hina and the Butcher cautiously called out to Kaito. However, he wasn’t listening. He clenched his fists and then took off in a dash.

“Mr. Servant!”

“Master Kaito!”

Kaito left the two of them and Elisabeth behind as he ran off and pulled open the door. He raced down the deserted hallway. His breath was ragged, and his eyes were burning with passion and fixated on the end of the passage before him.

He felt that something was wrong.

He didn’t know what it was, but he knew that there was something off about the whole situation.

The gray sky peeked in through the hole in the throne room’s wall. It was overcast again. The thick clouds looked like the belly of a whale as they sat above the trees.

Buffeted by the damp wind and dim light, Kaito stood in the center of the room’s stone floor and held a knife over one of his hands.

He spread out his palm, which he’d split open slightly during the Marquis’s raid. After giving a short nod, he deliberately plunged his knife into the cut. The knife buried itself in his flesh with a horrible squelch. After cutting to the depth he needed, he held the knife directly over the floor. His overflowing blood fell in a line on the stone.

Using his blood as ink, Kaito drew a rectangular symbol.

“—La (open).”

At his command, the blood loudly transformed into crimson flames. The fire burned fiercely atop the stone floor and then vanished without a trace. A black door appeared in its wake. Kaito didn’t touch it, yet it opened on its own from within like clockwork. A dimly lit space spread out inside it.

It was the entrance to Elisabeth’s Treasury.

“Oh, good, that worked. Go me.”

Kaito breathed a sigh of relief. He’d seen before how Elisabeth opened the Treasury. However, that alone wouldn’t have been enough to let him unlock it. In spite of that, though, he’d spontaneously trusted his intuition and managed to open it up.

Elisabeth had said that “all it takes to become able to use magic is a small trigger.” Until then, whenever he’d been on the verge of death, his soul had resonated with the powerful mana in her blood and played back her memories. Now that he was able to call forth the mana in her blood that flowed within his body, perhaps some information had spontaneously passed through it as well.

Kaito took a step inside the Treasury. Rectangular steps floated in the gloom at fixed intervals, forming a gentle spiral. When he peered down from the edge, nothing but the steps were visible. A tepid wind simply blew upward. Kaito nodded once and then leaped down onto the second step.

“Here we go.”

The stairs had no handrails, but Kaito took wide, unfaltering strides down them. After a short while, rubbish and torture devices began coming into view around him.

“…Somewhere around here maybe?”

Kaito stopped and then began looking for something. The thing that he was looking for was something that didn’t get used incessantly but not too infrequently, either. Elisabeth had probably tossed it in the Treasury’s upper levels.

Eventually, Kaito spotted his target at the feet of a bloody, rusty Iron Maiden.

It was an orb made of thin paper, a magical device that the Church had used to contact Elisabeth when they were ordering her to carry out the Kaiser’s subjugation.

“There we go. Now, as for turning it on… Although even if I can, there’s no guarantee it’ll connect…”

Kaito nervously set it atop his bloodstained palm. Blood soaked into it, turning the paper crimson. However, it suddenly made a noise and then returned to its original shade of white.

The blood had vanished, pigment and all.

The orb then began emitting a pale-blue light, as though it had used the vanished blood as a power source.

It then floated in the air, shining as it began rotating. Eventually, a figure appeared on the orb’s surface.

Having won the first of his gambles, Kaito clenched his fist. The transmission had connected with someone. The next problem was where and who it was connected to. Kaito tried to make out who the figure was. However, the image was blurred, as though covered in a layer of fog, and it was difficult to even make out their features.

Kaito frantically strained his eyes, knowing that if he could at least make out the front of their neck, he’d probably be able to tell if they were a member of the Church or not. While he was doing that, the figure suddenly spoke curtly.

Kaito recognized that overly characteristic voice.

“…What business do you have, Elisabeth?”

“Godd Deos… For real? Damn, looks like I pulled a winner.”

Kaito mumbled in amazement. It looked like he’d successfully contacted the person he’d expected to.

Godd Deos was a head executive of the Church and the person solely responsible for dealing with Elisabeth. Kaito doubted that he was the kind of person who one could just randomly get ahold of. It appeared that his hypothesis—that the orb was a special piece of magical communication equipment, a rare item with a direct link to Godd Deos—had been correct.

Godd Deos was also the person who’d passed down the order to believe in Elisabeth’s vow not to form a contract with a demon, promising that in the unlikely event that she did, he would offer up his own life to seal her away. He was quite possibly the best person to make an appeal to regarding Elisabeth’s poor condition. However, he was also the person who’d ordered her to defeat the Kaiser, telling her to do some good for the world before she died.

Kaito braced himself. However, before he could talk, Godd Deos spoke in his usual calm, doubtful voice.

“That voice isn’t Elisabeth’s. Who are you?”

“I’m Elisabeth’s servant, Kaito. Kaito Sena.”

“Ah, the ‘Good Soul’ Elisabeth summoned from another world. What business do you have with me? Did you get Elisabeth’s permission before using my precious orb?”

“Godd Deos, Elisabeth is in critical condition right now. Please hear me out. Her death would cause problems for you guys, too, right?”

“Give me details.”

Godd Deos’s response to Kaito was to the point. He then closed his mouth.

Kaito took a deep breath. It appeared that he didn’t need to worry about being immediately hung up on. He’d cleared the first hurdle. The rest was all up to his explanation.

He wet his tongue and then began rapidly thinking and talking.

“First of all, the Kaiser’s death set the Grand King into motion. By using up the hearts of the other demons, she can cast Sacrifice…and with it, she sealed away Elisabeth’s power.”

Stumbling over his words, Kaito somehow finished his explanation, up through the back-and-forth battle at the port town and the Grand King’s declaration. He should have been able to properly convey Elisabeth’s poor state. He finished with an entreaty.

“At this rate, the Grand King is going to kill Elisabeth. At best, they’ll take each other out. You guys over at the Church have to do—”

“I see. That’s more or less how we perceived the situation from our end.”

“…Say what?”

Unable to parse the information he’d just been given, Kaito let out a dumb exclamation. Godd Deos offered no reaction to his display of impoliteness.

You mean…the Church already knew?

Finally, Kaito understood what that meant. He flared up at the silent orb.

“What are you talking about?! Elisabeth’s about to get killed! If the Torture Princess dies, that’s a problem for you Church guys up in your spectator seats, right?! If you already knew all that, then why—?”

“If the Church were to send every paladin in their employ to reinforce the defenses at Elisabeth’s castle, there is a possibility that they could turn around her situation. However, doing so would amount to throwing away the defense of the capital and all our major cities.”

“Say what?”

Kaito let out another dumb exclamation. Godd Deos spoke in a tone without sentiment, a tone far removed from anything so imprecise as sentiment.

“The capital accounts for three-tenths of our total population and is the center of our economic and political systems. If it were attacked, humanity would find itself in quite the predicament. The Grand King is no fool. If we deployed our paladins, she would strike in their absence. And a few reinforcements would amount to nothing more than a drop in the bucket. After all, there’s no guarantee we could defeat her, even if we were to deploy our entire forces. And what about transporting Elisabeth to the well-defended capital, you might ask? There was great backlash to even leaving her alive. At worst, she could be taken to the stake on the spot.”

“That’s—”

“In short, we have no cards to play. Losing Elisabeth is regrettable, but at the moment our best option for victory is to have her fight the Grand King. With no risk of dragging others down with her, the Torture Princess should be able to go into the fight prepared to conclude it in mutual defeat. Afterward, we plan to attack the Grand King in her weakened state. The worst-case scenario would be deploying all our paladins and then having them wiped out along with the Torture Princess and losing all our defense. That is a gamble we are not prepared to make.”

“All that option amounts to is buying yourselves a little extra time. Or are you saying that you guys can take on the rest of the demons?”

“We likely won’t be able to destroy them. However, with the Kaiser gone, we should be able to fortify the capital and major cities to the point where they can stave off invasion. Many in the outlying regions will die, but humanity won’t perish. After that, we’ll likely enter a long period of equilibrium with the demons. During that time, we plan to search for options.”

“…But you’re just going to throw her away? You’ve made her fight all this time. Now you’re saying that you don’t care if she dies?”

“We are not throwing her away. We simply have no cards to play. And don’t forget, servant. While she is an effective tool, she is also a sinner. In the end, she will be executed without fail. It’s no different if she dies now—either way, her death will be ghastly.”

Godd Deos laid out the truth dispassionately. He spoke mechanically on the nature of Elisabeth’s offences.

“That woman has left far too many corpses in her wake. The slaughtered masses will not permit compassion, and the butchered knights will not approve of amnesty. No matter how many good deeds she piles up, the numbers of the dead will never shrink. In following, the fact that she is a sinner is the reason that we unsparingly whip her like a bound dog.”

Kaito clenched his fists. A kind of truth lurked with Godd Deos’s cold words.

The reason the Church was making Elisabeth pile up good deeds was not to commute her sentence but likely to save her soul after she died. No atonement she could make would reach the dead. The sentence for the crimes she’d committed in life had already been handed down.

Furthermore, it made complete sense for the Church to prioritize the safety of the people over that of the Torture Princess. Leaving the capital exposed for her sake would be like sacrificing one’s king in chess to protect their queen. In spite of that, though, anger bubbled up in Kaito’s chest.

He wrung a dry, composed voice out of his throat.

“So basically, it’s all your guys’ fault for being weak, right?”

“…Excuse me?”

“You guys, who didn’t pay a dime, who sacrificed nothing, are casting stones at someone who pulled a sword out from a mountain of corpses. You commit no crimes, and you don’t falter for an instant. And that amounts to jack shit. You’re doing jack shit, after all. But you still see fit to hand out your lofty opinions. Still, you call others sinners.”

“Servant.”

“If you guys had just been stronger, the Torture Princess wouldn’t have even been born, would she?”

Kaito ripped into one of the Church’s chief executives. He didn’t know why the Torture Princess had chosen to fight. She’d never once said. He didn’t know if that interpretation was right. But he would spit on anyone who ignored that possibility and cast stones at her.

After a few seconds’ silence, Godd Deos surprisingly affirmed the rebuke in his unchanging tone.

“Indeed, our powerlessness is a sin.”

“If you agree, then—”

“However, servant. At this point, it is impossible for us to muster enough power to be of support to Elisabeth. And the fact remains that the Torture Princess is a person who deserves to be reviled. As the representatives of the masses, we cannot pardon her of her crimes. Elisabeth Le Fanu pulled a sword out from a mountain of corpses. We are the representatives of those corpses. Just as you stand by the side of the Torture Princess, we stand with the long ranks of the deceased and their bereaved.”

Kaito stared silently up at the orb. He couldn’t make out the eyes or nose of the figure within, but he felt a gaze back from it.

Godd Deos was staring directly at Kaito, without a shred of shame.

“She trampled corpses, drank their blood, and obtained power. Do you think that we can praise anything built with that power? No matter what reason she may have had, evil is evil. Without judgment, the world’s order will be thrown into disarray. That is the kind of thing she became. And she knew that.”

“Elisabeth…”

“I ask you again, servant. Did you receive her permission to use my precious orb?”

This time, Kaito glued his mouth shut. An awkward, heavy silence fell. Then Kaito curtly responded.

“No. I didn’t get permission.”

“I suspected as much…fool. However, as a friend of her father’s, it brings me joy to know that she has a servant who worries for her. For her to have obtained a companion such as yourself at the end of her bloody path… Surely, she too is the recipient of God’s grace.”

“…God’s, huh?”

Murmuring softly, a deep frown stretched across Kaito’s face. He began pondering something. The orb was probably designed primarily to transmit sound, and as such, Godd Deos most likely couldn’t see his expression. Even so, when he continued speaking, his voice contained a surprising degree of sincerity for someone talking to a servant of the Torture Princess and a boy who was the target of an inquisition.

“As Elisabeth is one of God’s children, we sincerely hope that she overcomes the trials placed before her and that the good deeds she commits allow her soul to find salvation in the afterlife.”

“…God, huh?”

Again, Kaito responded with that word alone. Suddenly, all his tension drained away. As a matter of fact, his entire body relaxed, and he sat down upon the stairs. Dangling his legs off the stair’s edge, he gazed absentmindedly off into the gloom in a pose that made it look like he was relaxing.

Out of nowhere, his eyes flashed with the innocent light of a young boy.

Abruptly, Kaito began talking about something completely unrelated.

“You know, I don’t think heroes exist.”

“Heroes? I don’t quite follow.”

Godd Deos’s response was one of confusion, which was perfectly reasonable. Kaito laughed foolishly at him. With distant eyes, he looked off at somewhere other than where he was.

“You know, like crusaders or champions. At first, I wanted someone like that to save me. But before long, I stopped thinking that anything like that existed in this world. There’s nobody who unconditionally protects the weak, who saves others, who puts an end to injustices or brings about righteousness. If there was, then there wouldn’t be people like me who get beaten up and eventually killed off, would there? And you know…”

“—”

“…that sounds a whole lot like God.”

Kaito spoke quietly and bluntly. Godd Deos’s reply was a beat late.

As one of the heads of the Church, it was a declaration that he could have denied, even if he had to lie. The argument was crude, certainly not something that could be used to cast suspicion on long-standing religious doctrine. Perhaps the reason Godd Deos’s response was delayed was because Kaito’s voice had the awkward, pure tenor of a child’s to it.

With the voice of a child asking if God exists, Kaito talked about how he didn’t.

“I guess He doesn’t exist, after all.”

“God is one who offers prayers, one who saves—”

“No, your doctrine’s all well and good. But I’m talking about me here.”

As he spoke, Kaito’s energy returned, and he rose to his feet.

He looked as though he’d forgotten something. He stuck his hand in his trouser pocket and then heaved a heavy sigh.

“I’m sure there are places where God and heroes exist. But what I’m saying is, they don’t exist where I am. I’m saying that they weren’t there for me… But your explanation made sense to me.”

“It certainly doesn’t sound like it did.”

“Nah, I can see that I was being a dumb-ass. If someone were to ask if the Torture Princess was good or evil, then obviously the answer would be evil. It was crazy to ask the allies of her victims to come and save her. If I were on the side of her victims, then I’d be cheering from the rooftops to work her to the bone and then put her to the stake. Which means that this doesn’t have anything to do with you guys. I’m the one she summoned, and this is really all just me being selfish, so it’s really my problem.”

“Servant…what do you mean to say?”

“What I’m trying to say is that person who saved me wasn’t God or a hero. It wasn’t faith, and it wasn’t you guys.”

Kaito looked up directly at the orb.

The things he was saying were little more than a joke. There was no meaning or logic behind them. Even so, he spoke his mind, the uncertainty and anguish in his expression gone.

“It was the Torture Princess—the most evil woman in the world.”

Once, a woman had forced a miracle onto a young boy who lived in a world without gods or heroes. She’d granted a second life to a person who’d been worked to the bone and known nothing but pain.

That had been—

It had been a pain in the ass, it had been awful—and it had been wonderful beyond compare.

“So I’m not going to rely on you guys, Godd Deos; I’m just going to do what I can. I’ve made up my mind.”

“Wait, what do you intend—?”

“I don’t have any regrets. So no matter what outcome awaits us, you guys should make sure that you don’t, either.”

Kaito raised his bloodstained hand. A spear of ice shot out of his palm. With a sharp sound, it pierced through the orb. The call cut off.

Kaito stuck his hand back in his pocket. He breathed in deep and then exhaled.

Then he tightly grasped the stone, which was emitting heat from within its cloth confines.

Kaito ascended the gentle slope of the Treasury’s stairs. The higher he went, the more the gloom cleared up. Light shone down from the rectangular entrance at the top.

As he followed the light with his eyes, he saw Hina standing beside the hole.

Her face was strained with tension, and she was looking down into the gloom.

“Hey there, Hina.”

“Master Kaito…”

As she noticed Kaito and their eyes met, her beautiful face relaxed and she breathed a sigh of relief.

Kaito, having finished climbing the stairs, stood in the throne room.

At some point, the sky outside had taken on the hue of twilight. It appeared that the thick clouds had drifted away in the wind as though swimming through the sea. The room was filled with golden light.

The massive, delicate tapestries decorating the walls were also lit by splashes of light, and Hina’s silver hair shone even more beautifully. Facing her, Kaito spoke.

“Sorry for running off on you like that. How are Elisabeth and the Butcher?”

“Lady Elisabeth is sleeping at present. As for Mr. Butcher, he said that due to the late hour, he plans on leaving after having dinner. Until then, he plans on watching over Elisabeth, which is why I came here.”

“Still sticking around after all that… I can’t say I’m not grateful, but damn, that guy’s got nerves of steel.”

Kaito spoke with a voice full of admiration, although the fact that his mental image of the Butcher was giving him a big thumbs-up irritated him somehow. Then he realized that his hand, which was sticking halfway out of his pocket, was drenched in blood. His butler uniform was covered in dark-red stains.

Realizing how bad it must look to Hina, Kaito frantically tried to explain.

“Uhhh, Hina, this is, uh—”

“Please forgive me for my rudeness, Master Kaito.”

After murmuring rapidly, Hina dashed across the room and wrapped her arms gently around his back. She then stooped down a bit and buried her face in Kaito’s shoulder. Her silver hair rustled pleasantly against his cheek.

Hina spoke to Kaito, who had stiffened up in surprise, in a muffled voice that sounded like she was on the verge of tears.

“I’m so glad you’re all right… I feared that perhaps you weren’t going to return.”

“Wait, Hina, why? I only… I just went to go get something.”

“Recently, it feels like you’ve been becoming more and more distant, Master Kaito… And it feels like you’re getting hurt in places where I cannot reach you. The magic you’re using has a dangerous aura to it…and that pit down there is dark and hollow and terrifying. I thought that you might have been sucked in by it. Please don’t go down there on your own. Please don’t leave me alone… I beg of you.”

“Wh—? Huh?”

Kaito’s voice was full of confusion. It was true that the Treasury was a magical space filled indiscriminately with things brought over from Elisabeth’s old castle. It lacked so much as handrails, and if one touched the wrong thing within it, they were liable to die. Even so, there was no reason for a powerful automaton like Hina to fear it so.

Thinking on her words, Kaito suddenly recalled a certain scene.

There was an illuminated wall, and iron shackles were growing from it. A naked girl hung crucified from them, on display like goods in a store. Having mistaken her for a human, Kaito had unfastened her restraints.

Does Hina have memories from back then, from before I turned her on properly?

“Hey…Hina…”

The question on the tip of his tongue, Kaito closed his mouth. She was lightly trembling as she held him in her embrace. Apparently, she hadn’t even noticed the wound on his hand. After thinking for a moment, Kaito wrapped his arms around her. Taking care not to sully her maid uniform, he put strength into them.

Uh…I think I saw a mom and her kid playing like this at a park once, right?

Kaito then grunted and tried to lift Hina up in his arms. However, it was beyond him. She was heavier than he’d expected. As cute as her appearance was, she was metal on the inside after all.

A few silent seconds passed, and Kaito grunted and gathered his strength once more. Hina tilted her head to the side in bewilderment.

“Um, Master Kaito, may I ask what it is you’re trying to do? Wait, I smell blood… Eek, Master Kaito, your wound!”

“Don’t worry; it’s fine. We’ve come this far. Hina, can you, like, do a spin?”

“It is most certainly not fine, it’s… Hmm? If you say so, but a spin?”

Hina moved her feet to match the way Kaito was tilting his body. The two of them spun. As they did, Kaito tilted his body even more. Hina frantically shifted her feet.

They spun, and they spun, and eventually began energetically twirling atop the stone floor. The hem of Hina’s maid outfit gently swayed. Rapidly blinking her emerald eyes, Hina held Kaito tight so as not to let him go as she followed his lead and shifted her feet even faster. Before long, the centrifugal force was lifting Kaito off the ground.

Supported by Hina, he spun around in her arms.

“No, no, Hina, the other way around! I wanted to do this to you!”

“Pardon me? But Master Kaito, forgive me for saying this, but I feel that lifting an automaton body would be difficult, given your physical strength… Ah, but this is really quite fun. It makes my gears feel all warm and fuzzy—eek!”

“Hwah!”

Kaito had tried to recover by putting down his feet, and the two of them teetered over as a result. Hina maneuvered her body under his to break his fall.

The two of them collapsed on the stone floor.

“M-my bad! Hina, are you okay?”

“Yes, very… As a matter of fact, this situation is rather lucrative for me.”

With an ecstatic expression, Hina hugged Kaito to her ample bosom. It was a rather problematic position, and he squirmed to get free. He couldn’t exactly just stay surrounded by that marshmallow-like softness.

Kaito quickly made his escape. Pretending not to notice how regretful Hina’s expression was after they parted, he collapsed to the floor next to her.

The floor was cold and hard, but the two of them reclined as though they were lying on a bed of flowers.

Amid the orange light shining down upon them, Kaito murmured briefly.

“Is the fear all gone now?”

“Master Kaito…”

“I saw a kid playing like that at a park once a long time ago. The kid was crying, and their mom picked them up and spun them around and around.”

“Around and around?”

“I didn’t really understand what I was watching at the time. It didn’t really click. But now, I understand that it’s for times like these. So I thought I’d try it out.”

“…”

“Well, if you’re not afraid anymore, then I guess it worked.”

“…”

“Hina? Can you hear me? Did it not work?”

“Oh, I can’t take it anymore! I love you so muuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuch!”

Suddenly, Hina let out a shout. Kaito lay there, surprised, and she covered her face and rolled and rolled and rolled far away from him. Then she bonked into the wall of the room.

As Kaito silently wondered what he should do, she came rolling and rolling and rolling back, her face still buried in her hands.

“I’m not totally following what you’re doing, but welcome back.”

“What am I going to do if you make me wuv you any more, Mashter Kaito…? I weally, weally can’t take it anymore…! Shomebody shave me…!”

“Hina, you’re slurring your words a bit.”

“I wuv you sho, sho mush I can’t even talk…! My shinsherest apologiesh…! Tee-hee.”

Still covering her face, Hina curled up into a ball and rocked from side to side. After trembling from lovesickness for a little longer, she quickly stopped.

Remaining curled up, she murmured.

“I told you, Master Kaito. I told you that I’d eventually explain why I chose you, why it couldn’t have been anyone else.”

“…Yeah, you did say that.”

“To put it all into words would take a week. However, allow me to tell you about the beginning of the beginning. Before you turned me on, before you established my settings… Even in my base state, I could perceive the outside world.”

Kaito nodded, his suspicions affirmed. It had seemed like she was able to tell what had been going on around her, even when she seemed dormant. She hadn’t been turned on at the time, but it was impossible to tell how active the consciousness born within her gears was from the outside.

“However, while I could obtain information, I was unable to feel, nor was I able to think. When I was brought into the world, and when I watched those around me get activated and dispassionately serve their masters, I could do nothing… Do you remember the automaton maids that were with Vlad? They were not furnished with the start-up setting wherein one out of the four options—‘parent and child,’ ‘siblings,’ ‘master and servant,’ or ‘lovers’—is selected. They were designed to serve as servants…and I was designed to be presented to others.”

“…Presented to others.”

“A twisted gift Vlad enjoyed giving his guests. For those he wasn’t fond of, he would give us to them without telling them the correct answer, and to those that he was, he would tell them the answer and give us to them as toys. The girls who were successfully gifted met miserable fates. When I was at that man’s estate, I saw dolls who had three extra breasts added and genitals installed in their cheeks yet still smiled and served their masters as their lovers.”

“That’s messed up…”

“At that time, I was unable to think. All I did was silently perceive. However, due to the start of the battle between Vlad and the Torture Princess, I was not gifted to anybody and instead was set so as to not freely activate and then stashed away in a storehouse. One day, though, I found myself frivolously transported from the castle’s storehouse to Lady Elisabeth’s Treasury. Then I stayed there…and ages and ages passed. At some point, even the renewal period for the temporary master I had been assigned so that I wouldn’t disobey him, Vlad, lapsed, and I returned to a clean slate. And just when I realized that nobody was ever going to come there, you arrived.”

“I did?”

“You did.”

Hina nodded deeply. She closed her eyes, as if thinking back to that time.

“I sensed your warmth and felt your gaze upon me. But instead of rudely appraising me or inspecting me, you simply called out and asked if I was okay and then unfastened my restraints.”

“I mean…that was because I thought you were a human.”

“Among all the people I knew, not one of them would have saved a bound girl who they knew nothing about. When they’re initially activated, most dolls are filled with rage—the rage of having their tranquility shattered and being made to yield. Unless they receive orders, they will abide by their rage and destroy everything in their path. And I, being no exception, attacked you. However, when I found myself bound from head to toe and determined that I was at a loss, I thought fervently to myself that I wanted it to be you.”

Kaito thought back to that time. The doll, affixed to the Ducking Stool, had looked at Kaito. She had focused her emerald-green eyes directly on him, as if imploring him.

“…That was the first powerful urge that ever sprouted within me. You had released me to no personal gain, and you saved me from being demolished even though I nearly killed you. That was when I decided that I wanted it to be you. You were different, so I wanted it to be you. If I were to serve, if I were to be granted feelings, then it would be unthinkable for it not to be under you. Even after you formally decided for me to be your lover, I never doubted those powerful feelings I felt then.”

“Hina…”

“Allow me to say something arrogant: You are a man well deserving of my love.”

Hina opened her eyes and then turned to her side. Her cheek made gentle contact with the stone floor, and her emerald eyes glowed as she turned to face Kaito. The love in her expression was as real as could be.

She then reached out a hand and gently enveloped his blood-soaked palm.

“Oh, how terribly wounded you are. Even so, you understand the pain of others. You are full of fear, yet you still hold others precious to you, and you still try to treat people with kindness. And amid the deep rage and despair we find ourselves in, you still hold a heart that values our daily routine.”

“…”

“When I watch you trying to preserve kindness and warmth despite knowing the madness and terrors of the world…what reason would I have not to love you? You say that you have given me nothing and that you are nothing more than a man, but that is hardly the case. I have received so, so many things from you. So many wonderful things.”

Tears began spilling out from the corners of Hina’s emerald eyes. They fell to the floor, glittering in the golden twilight. As her teardrops scattered against the stone floor, Hina gently smiled.

“Do you know how much joy preparing food every day brought me? Do you understand how blessed I felt at cleaning the grounds, at laughing together with Lady Elisabeth, at hearing her compliment my cooking, at greeting you, at working alongside you, and at being able to tell you about my love for you?”

“Hina…all that made me happy, too. Before I came here, I’d never experienced anything like it. Even after seeing all the terrible things the demons did and getting mixed up in those gruesome battles…even then I was happy. Ever since I came here, I got to experience so many things for the first time.”

Spurred on by Hina’s words, Kaito thought back to his old life. His days back then had been filled with nothing but pain and despair. With his broken ribs and twisted body, he’d moaned every time he lay down on his tatami mat. He hadn’t even had the strength to shoo away the flies that would gather above his eyes.

Hina gently combed back his bangs and stroked his forehead as though to console him for those days he’d left far behind. She smiled through her tears. It was a warm, kind, affirming smile.

“…It looks like we’re a perfect match, aren’t we, Master Kaito? You are a man of tremendous value. That kindness you possess that you managed to maintain despite all your sorrow is like a diamond in the mud. It is impossible for me not to love you. And I don’t want to lose you.”

Hina squeezed Kaito’s hand in hers. He could clearly make out the strong feelings in her grasp.

“Hina…”

Kaito understood whether he wanted to or not. She had noticed something. Even if she didn’t know the specifics, she had probably sensed what he was thinking and planning.

Tears pouring from her eyes, she tried to stop him.

“…Master Kaito, I cannot say that I know what you’re thinking. But please, please…I beg of you…”

Hina made a vague plea. Still feeling the warmth of her hand, Kaito closed his eyes. He thought back to everything that had happened up until then.

He thought back to Elisabeth punching the table and tearfully proclaiming that Kaito’s cooking was vile. To Hina, bringing out new food with a troubled smiled on her face. To Elisabeth, rejoicing with such vigor it seemed like cat ears would sprout atop her head. To Hina, gently watching over her.

He thought back to the conversations the three of them had shared and to the peaceful days they’d spent despite how twisted their situation had been.

He was on the verge of losing all that.

He was going to lose it in a manner as cruel as the way all the powerless people who’d been killed by the demons up until then had lost their peaceful lives.

“I’m sorry…but I refuse to give this up.”

Kaito murmured softly and then opened his eyes and shook off Hina’s hand. She looked shocked. However, he quickly reached his arms back out. Still lying on the ground, he tightly embraced her.

It was the first time he’d ever properly reached out and hugged her.

Blood seeped into her maid uniform, but he ignored that. He put strength into his arms, the way someone would hug a sister, a child, a lover.

Hina’s face went pink, and she began flapping her mouth open and closed. Before she could say anything, Kaito whispered to her.

“Sorry, Hina… Even though you think so highly of me, I might become someone different than the person you love.”

“Master Kaito, what are you—?”

“Please just hear me out. I can’t tell you the specifics. But I might change. But even if I do, there’s one thing I need you to believe. I want to protect this life of ours. I want to protect this life that you and I love so much. I can’t stay powerless anymore. I want to protect you and Elisabeth. No, I will protect you. That’s all. So even if I become completely different… If even then…”

Kaito licked his lips. It scared him to put it into words. Up until then, he’d always lived life on his own. And he didn’t even know if such a thing was permissible. Maybe it wasn’t right to even ask. But even with those thoughts running through his mind, he squeezed the words out of his throat.

“…If even then you still love me, then please fight by my side.”

“Master Kaito…”

“You said that no matter what happened, you would stand in the way of all my enemies. And you told me that if I thought anything of you, that I should tell you either to protect me or to fight together by my side… If you don’t mind me taking you up on that, if you don’t mind me believing in you, then I’ll do everything in my power to live up to those feelings of yours…and if you don’t think that I’m worthy of your love anymore after I’ve changed, then so be it. But even if that happens, there’s one thing I want you to remember.”

As he continued speaking ambiguously, he put more strength into his arms. He couldn’t tell her the specifics. If he told her what he was planning on doing, she’d probably try desperately to stop him. That was precisely why he was keeping his intentions hidden as he hugged and conveyed his heartfelt feelings to her.

“I love you. Please never doubt that.”

“Master Kaito…”

“I love you, Hina… Ah, I see. So this is what love is like.”

Kaito laughed foolishly. He rested his chin on Hina’s shoulder. Tears began leaking from the corners of his eyes. He spoke in a voice tinged with happiness and sadness.

“You know, I never expected to fall in love after I died.”

Hina quietly trembled as she hugged him.

She whispered gently back to him, as though they were exchanging wedding vows.

“No matter what kind of person you become, you will always be my dearest, my darling, my destined one, my master, my one true love, and my eternal companion. And I shall always be yours. No matter what kind of life awaits me, I don’t mind… So if you must fight, then I beg of you, call upon me. I shall accompany you to the depths of Hell.”

“…Thank you, Hina.”

The two of them silently embraced each other atop the stone floor.

That was how spent their peaceful moments together.

The twilight faded, its golden light swallowed up by the darkness of night. The wind carried a slight chill as the moon ascended into the sky. Eventually, Kaito slowly rose to his feet and began walking away from Hina.

He didn’t turn to look back. Understanding, Hina didn’t call out to stop him.

He left the throne room alone. After descending the stairs, he made his way down the hallway.

After reaching the bedroom, he paused for a moment, unsure of whether or not to knock, and then opened the door a hair. He could hear two people sleeping within. He slid into the room to check up on them, being careful not to make a sound.

It appeared that the Butcher had dozed off. His face was as hidden as always, but Kaito could make out strands of drool dripping onto the sheets from within the man’s hood. Kaito wiped away a little of the saliva. The Butcher mumbled something or other.

“Eh-heh-heh, I’m afraid I can’t eat any more. Oh, but if you insist, then three tarts for me.”

“Man, you really do have nerves of steel, don’t you?”

After muttering earnestly, Kaito turned his gaze to Elisabeth. Illuminated by the moonlight, her face had a sort of otherworldly beauty to it. After staring for a moment, he whispered to her.

“You’re probably going to be livid. But I’ve made up my mind, Elisabeth.”

“…”

“See you later. When you wake up, I’ll make you some purin.”

No response came from Elisabeth who was still in a deathlike slumber. Kaito reached out to stroke her cheek and then stopped himself midway and grasped his hand tightly.

He instead gave her a light wave and then left the bedroom with silent footsteps.

“Sweet dreams, Elisabeth.”

After murmuring as though he were calling out to a child, Kaito shut the door. As he basked in the light shining down from the skylight, he took a deep breath and then exhaled.

He walked through the hallway and then made his way down the stairs to the basement.

When he reached the underground passageways, he reviewed his mental map before advancing deeper and deeper into the complex corridors. Upon reaching the empty room and the edge of his memory’s range, he stuck his hand in his pocket.

He grabbed onto the transparent stone with his bloodstained hand.

Its azure rose was already in full bloom.

Suddenly, the stone emitted heat, enough that it felt like it would sear his skin. Black feathers danced before Kaito’s eyes. Azure petals swirled as well, and together they blanketed the room. An overwhelming amount of black and blue flooded his vision.

A bloody animal’s scent came in from somewhere. A strange wind whirled, feeding the feathers and flowers to the surrounding darkness.

A single man stood in their wake.

He sat upon a seat of beast bones, and he whispered as if he knew everything.

“Well then, have you decided?”

“Yeah, I’ve decided all right.”

Their exchange was concise, as though they were close friends.

Then Kaito Sena made his declaration to Vlad Le Fanu.

“I’m going to form a contract with the Kaiser.”

The words he spoke were absurdly foolish and far too reckless.

This was also the only method he had come up with to overturn this situation.