Fremd Torturchen - Volume 8 - Chapter 12

12

The Lovers’ Oath

There was no change to the chessboard in that red room.

Just a bestial piece that should have vanished, still moving around.

And another piece, one that was covered in blood. The second piece had no effect on the board as a whole.

And yet even so, someone was crying.

“You’re so important to me,” they were saying. “I want you by my side. Even if the world doesn’t need you there.

“Please.

“I’m begging you.”

“…Kaiser?”

“Ha, and what a sorry state you’re in. To think that the self-proclaimed Torture Princess would nearly let herself get eaten by a divine beast.”

The Kaiser laughed, mocking her from the bottom of his heart. Elisabeth frowned.

The question was, why was he there? Behind him, the saint’s limbs lay broken and twisted in all the wrong directions, and the wounds on her legs were closed up so tight it was like they weren’t even there. She clearly wasn’t getting back up any time soon.

Elisabeth had been saved. However, the Kaiser’s very existence was a mystery.

Vlad is dead.

By all rights, his contract should have died with him.

Elisabeth started to ask for an explanation, but the Kaiser shook his jaw at her in preemptive annoyance.

“Now, it seems to have slipped your mind, but…do you not care what happens to the other girl?”

“…Ah! Jeanne!”

Elisabeth whirled around. He was right—now was no time for questions.

Jeanne had just had her neck torn open. And given how deep the wound was, it was doubtful she’d be able to close it properly.

Elisabeth rushed over to the golden girl.

Izabella was cradling her.

It was like a scene straight out of a fairy tale. The golden princess was in the knight’s arms, eyes closed as though sleeping. Her luxurious honey-blond hair was splayed out and reached all the way to the ground. However, much of it was stained a grim shade of crimson.

Izabella desperately tried to maintain pressure on the neck wound.

“Elisabeth, the blood… There’s so much blood! What do we do? Oh, Jeanne…”

“There’s no need to cry like that, my lady… It’s a damn waste of that pretty li’l face of yours.”

Jeanne opened her eyes and reached out with her bloodstained hand. She made to stroke Izabella’s cheek but stopped at the last moment. Not wanting to soil what little skin Izabella’s face had left, she slowly returned her arm to her side.

Then it was Izabella who reached out. She grabbed Jeanne’s hand and pressed it against her cheek. Large tears rolled down over Jeanne’s tiny palm. One after another, the clear drops cascaded to the ground.

Jeanne’s eyes widened a little. She spoke in an unhurried tone.

“How very sweet of you. Heh, I wouldn’t mind droppin’ dead right here and now.”

“Please, you mustn’t say things like that. I’m begging you.”

“This place…really does bring back memories. Both then and now, ain’t never been nothin’ but death here.”

Upon hearing that, Elisabeth took another look around.

Jeanne had a point. This was Jeanne de Rais’s birthplace, a cradle built specifically to raise her. And so, too, was it the graveyard where the alchemists had sacrificed themselves.

Jeanne’s rose-red gaze flitted about their surroundings. The crucified corpses that had once decorated the area were no longer anywhere to be seen.

She looked back at Izabella and let out a small breath.

“Everyone lives knowing that death will someday take them. To the people here, I was nothing but a puppet meant to massacre them all. ‘Grant us our wish, O Torture Princess,’ they said. ‘Send us to our eternal rest.’ That’s so messed up! I mean, if you’re dying, your dreams ain’t worth shit. They’re just a burden, weighing down the livin’… I won’t speak ill of their pride itself, but they could have stood showing their emotions a little more. But now there’s nothing but death here, and—”

“Jeanne, that’s enough! Please don’t say any more. You’re making your wound worse. You—”

“But you…you were always so warm.”

Jeanne slowly closed her eyes. Her lips curled into a smile.

Elisabeth thought back. Jeanne’s crass manner of speaking was something she’d picked up from a group of bandits she went and captured, but the alchemists themselves hadn’t taught her a thing about how to express emotions.

And yet in spite of that, and in spite of the blood she was drenched in, she was looking up at Izabella with a gaze full of heartfelt adoration.

As Izabella’s tears rolled over her palms, Jeanne thoroughly mulled over every word as she spoke.

“Even with so much machinery in you… Even after what I did to you, you’re still so warm.”

“Don’t say it like that—you saved me. I, you…you bring so much warmth into my life as well… Please, you can’t die on me. Don’t die. I’m begging you!”

Izabella squeezed Jeanne’s hand even tighter than before. She was crying like a child, tears gushing from her blue and purple eyes. The way she embraced Jeanne, it was like she was desperately trying to pin her to the mortal coil. She buried her face in Jeanne’s honey-blond hair and whispered.

“I’m begging you, my love.”

“…Say what?”

And for her troubles

she got back an incredulous cry.

“O-oh, goodness.”

Elisabeth reflexively stepped back.

Now she was worried about what was to come for a completely different reason than she had been before.

Jeanne jerked her torso all the way vertical in a highly inadvisable maneuver for someone on death’s door.

Elisabeth took another step back. Her intuition had been right on the mark. As for Jeanne herself, though, Izabella commanded the sum total of her attention. Jeanne’s rose-red eyes were as wide as dinner plates.

She spoke in an unnervingly serious tone.

“Again.”

“J-Jeanne, that’s not important, your wound—”

“Please repeat what you just said.”

“Wh-which part?”

“‘My…’”

“…My love?”

And with that, Jeanne died.

No, wait, she just toppled over backward.

Izabella cried out, frantically supporting her back and embracing her. Her tone rang with desperation.

“Please, my love, you have to stay with me!”

As Elisabeth listened to the dead-serious plea, she gave the two of them an askance look. Despite being a dog, the Kaiser’s expression was much the same as hers. Then Jeanne abruptly sat up again.

She, too, sounded scarily serious, but her tone was bewildered in equal measure.

“My lady, might it be the case that you, um, well, perhaps think of me…in that light? Y’know, kinda sorta maybe like lovers?”

“…Forget what I think—I already am your lover, am I not?”

Jeanne died.

Oh, enough of that already, Elisabeth silently retorted.

“Ah,” Jeanne said, then rose with surprising ease.

However, she gave that no follow-up.

Her mouth flapped open and closed, but her voice refused to come out. However, the cause wasn’t exactly medical in nature. She then repeated the whole process several times, making it look like she was performing some sort of heretical ritual dance.

A moment after she finished, she launched into a barrage of questions.

“But then why do you never act like it? One day you’re kind to me, the next you seem wholly uninterested, and some days you barely even greet me. How many fuckin’ beastfolk doors do you think I’ve had to smash down just so I could get some damn advice?!”

“You know, I’m still waiting for you to apologize about that,” Elisabeth noted.

“Can it, bitch. One thing at a time.”

“…Y-you were smashing down doors? Anyhow, I thought that changing my lifestyle and behavior just because I was in a relationship would come across as insincere, but…if it made you feel insecure, then I was putting the cart before the horse. I’m truly sorry.”

Izabella scratched her cheek and gave Jeanne an apologetic bow. Jeanne began vibrating. Her expression couldn’t keep up with all the powerful emotions welling up inside her, and as she shouted, she seemed liable to explode at any moment.

“But you never answered my c-c-confession!”

“I did! I told you, ‘I’ve acknowledged your feelings, and I appreciate them.’ If I was turning you down, I would have said so!”

“Surely you could have picked something a little more romantic, you dumbass! Fuck I love you!”

Meanwhile, Elisabeth and the Kaiser shared an inane little exchange of their own.

“That girl is quite something… Even her normal speech is starting to sound like that.”

“What do you mean by ‘like that,’ Kaiser?”

“You know, I’m not quite sure myself.”

Elisabeth couldn’t begin to tell if Jeanne was acting angry or being bashful or what. All she knew for sure was that Jeanne was puffing up her cheeks and swaying side to side. That was when Elisabeth realized something.

The wound on Jeanne’s neck was completely healed.

A small piece of metal had come off Izabella’s hand and carefully sealed up the fang wound. Like Waltz, it was a technique that only the two of them could have pulled off.

Ah, Elisabeth thought, satisfied.

There really hadn’t been a need to cry.

Izabella was still worried about Jeanne’s wound, but she steeled her resolve all the same. She had caused her lover to worry, and no person half as earnest as her would be able to forgive themselves for something like that.

She reverently took Jeanne’s hand in hers. Then, as Jeanne went still, she pressed her lips against Jeanne’s fingers. It was beautiful and heartwarming, like a scene plucked straight out of a fairy tale.

Izabella then spoke, the words coming from the bottom of her heart.

“My dearest beloved. You cast aside your weapon for me, saved me, sacrificed yourself for me, and fell from the sky into my arms. And in that moment, you were the most beautiful star I had ever seen—a light that shone for me and me alone. I ask of you this: Will you stay by my side for the rest of our days?”

Jeanne shook violently and nearly keeled over. It was far too much for her heart to take. However, she valiantly fought to stay upright.

In spite of herself, Elisabeth found it somewhat impressive. This time, it was Izabella who had gone a bit overboard.

Jeanne, not sure how to respond, lapsed back into her strange heretical dance. She squeezed her fists and eyes tightly shut.

In the end, she shouted but a single word.

“Marriage!”

“Of course! We’ll have a big ceremony in the Capital!”

The two of them exchanged a firm embrace. Hmm, Elisabeth thought.

Technically, Jeanne had been in a life-threatening situation.

And now the two lovers had both successfully survived.

Not only that, they’d finally managed to communicate their feelings to each other. Jeanne cried in joy, and Izabella gently stroked her fair back. Viewed objectively, the whole situation was downright moving.

However, both members of the audience felt as though they’d been left completely in the dust.

Elisabeth shook her head from side to side.

Then she looked over at the Kaiser and shot him a question.

“What exactly did I just witness?”

“Hell if I know.”

And at the end of the day

there was really no other way to put it.