Fremd Torturchen - Volume 9 - Chapter 10

10

The Torture Princess and the Kaiser

There was a conversation that took place just before Armageddon.

“I need to tell you about your brother.”

Those were the words Elisabeth Le Fanu had used to broach the subject with Izabella Vicker.

Then she told Izabella everything. About the contractor to the Knight, who was one of the fourteen demons—and about his features and the way he died. She told Izabella that she wasn’t positive the man had actually been her younger brother, but to Izabella, the matter was settled. There was no doubt in her mind that had been her brother indeed.

Izabella’s brother had had eyes of the purest blue. He was possessed with both a strong will to live and a powerful sense of justice. The regrets he felt at the Plain of Skewers would easily have been enough for the demons to win him over.

After telling Izabella what happened, Elisabeth asked her to choose if she was going to fight or not. If she wanted to flee, Elisabeth wouldn’t have blamed her, and if she wanted to turn on Elisabeth, that was her right. However, Izabella’s sole response had been, “Thank you.”

She wanted to thank Elisabeth for saving her brother after he fell in with the demons.

That was how she truly felt. However, that wasn’t to say she didn’t feel torn up about it. When she thought back, Izabella realized that, for the longest time, that was how her whole life had gone. She had constantly been forced to weigh her own wants and needs against what was right, and she had chosen righteousness every time.

She had no regrets about that. But it did make her sad. Izabella Vicker’s life had been a painfully prosaic one. But then salvation had come to her from the last place she’d expected.

The person who’d once fallen into her arms had been unbelievably beautiful.

Jeanne had saved her.

Jeanne had pined for her.

Jeanne had loved her.

Jeanne was her everything.

Jeanne had gone and loved someone who had naught to her name but righteousness.

And to the very end, Izabella had had the person she loved by her side.

That in and of itself was a blessing of the truest sort.

And because of that, Izabella Vicker thought of herself

as one of the happiest people in the world.

Do you pledge to take me, in sickness and in health, in joy and in sorrow, to love and to cherish, to comfort and to support, with all of your heart until death do us part?

“I do.”

The corpses of two women lay before Alice.

Everything from their waists down had been shredded to ribbons, and their guts had come spilling out of their chests. However, the fact that anything remained of them at all was an oddity. Such was the sheer power of the White Knight’s attack.

However, Alice had deliberately misaimed her final slash.

She couldn’t blast them away into nothing.

She simply couldn’t.

The two women had been holding hands to the bitter end.

And they’d been smiling oh-so-peacefully.

“Why…are you smiling?” Alice mumbled.

She racked her brain. Wasn’t death supposed to be sad? Wasn’t it supposed to be despair-inducing? If she were the one dying, she certainly wouldn’t have been able to wear an expression like that. So why—?

“Why, why, why ARE YOU SMILINGGGGGGGGGG?!”

She got no reply to her scream of a question. For Alice was alone. She clenched her fists tight in front of her chest. She had butchered countless scores of people there, yet she stood there and shed big, soppy tears.

Then, out of the blue, she raised her head and spoke as though she’d stumbled upon a single last ray of hope.

“Elisabeth! That’s right, that’s right. Elisabeth.”

She started walking with an unsteady gait. She had dispelled the White Knight for a time as she stared at Jeanne’s and Izabella’s corpses, so it was her own two legs she now tottered on. Her faltering footsteps carried her across the gash she herself had gouged in the ground.

She was the spitting image of a child who’d gotten lost.

It was like she was chasing after an older sister who had gone and left her behind.

“C’mon, Elisabeth, tell me, tell me… Because I don’t get it, see.”

I don’t understand any of it anymore.

There wasn’t a cloud in the sky. As a matter of fact, there was nothing there at all.

The only things filling it were milky-white and rainbow hues. Diablo had left no lasting changes there, yet all the same, it was impossible to deny that death had a stronger hold over the world than ever. There was something terribly odd about that fact when Elisabeth thought about it.

She was at the World’s End. The place that the Saint had designated as such.

That was where she watched Jeanne and Izabella die.

She silently dispelled the image—the window—that the blue ring had displayed for her.

A single teardrop rolled down her cheek, and she turned. This time, her gaze came to a quiet rest on the people slumbering in the crystal. The Kaiser said nothing. Elisabeth gingerly placed her hand atop the crystal’s glowing surface.

It was as cold as could be, but she rested her cheek against it all the same.

“Kaito, Hina…will you fight with me?”

No response came. However, she nodded anyway. She conjured a flower petal and used it to slit her wrist.

The Torture Princess’s mana-infused blood spilled forth, trickling into crimson lines and delicately encircling the crystal where Kaito and Hina slept. When it did, the two slumbering pillars began moving in kind. They coiled around each other and their thorny vines pointed outward. Brilliant roses of azure and crimson bloomed along their lengths once more. Then the newly grown pillars wound themselves around the crystal like some sort of profane shrine.

Now the preparations were complete. Elisabeth let out a brief exhale. Then, without a word, she sat down.

Never again would she be able to rest her back against that crystal.

She cast her solitary gaze up at the sky.

The Kaiser made no snide remarks. He was a clever enough beast to realize that this was hardly the time for such things.

And with that, Elisabeth did like she had so long ago,

and began singing a song.

It’s time for a story.

It’s the story of a young woman left alone and a story of a child who was abandoned.

Or perhaps it’s the story of a woman who was a monster, and a girl who became a monster herself.

It was, in the end, a story that needed to be ended.

And so she took up her sword. And so they drew their blades.

It’s time for a story.

A story of repentance, dreams, and hatred.

A story in which she and they dreamed of saving the world.

A story they dreamed with all their might,

even if it meant throwing themselves to the wolves.

The change came about all at once.

Crimson boiled up atop the clear ground, and the snowflakes piled high, and the ice cracked and shattered in succession.

A wave of terrible teleportation circles spread out like a toxin.

The first ones to show up were the fixed batteries, who appeared in a circle surrounding Elisabeth. Their eyes and tongues had been plucked out, their limbs had been severed, and they writhed as they suffered in an eternity of pain.

Elisabeth realized something in her gut.

This is the sum total of Lewis’s legacy.

There was no way there were any more of them than that. Finally, the very last of their reserves had been deployed.

It was time to put an end to those pitiful creatures.

Elisabeth wasted no time in leaping astride the Kaiser. She soared through the air, nimbly avoiding the searing rays of the batteries’ screams. The Kaiser flapped his wings, higher and higher and higher still. He let out a low growl.

“Enough with the nobodies. Go to your rests and be quick about it.”

Upon reaching the highest of heights, the Kaiser descended.

Darkness blotted out everything around the site where the fourteen demons’ mightiest member landed.

For a time, everything was deathly silent.

Then, after a few seconds, the darkness transformed into black feathers. The feathers exploded in a shower of azure flower petals. The blast was at the fixed batteries’ center, and it reduced them all into piles of entrails and puddles of blood. In death, they were finally free from their suffering.

Despite the display of overwhelming power he’d just put on, though, the Kaiser didn’t laugh this time.

After he landed, he adopted a low stance and growled out an ominous prophecy. “She’s coming, foolish child. A calamity cometh.”

A calamity cometh.

A calamity cometh.

Thus spoke the mightiest of the fourteen demons.

Suddenly, a black spot not unlike a rabbit hole opened in the air. A young girl in a blue dress hopped out.

It was Alice, but there was something off about her. She was crying, and both of her arms were outstretched.

She looked anxious, almost like a lost child.

“Elisabeth… Ewivubeeeth!”

“And why exactly are you crying?” Elisabeth asked her, acknowledging Alice’s sorrow in a voice so gentle she surprised even herself.

Alice trembled as she shook her head. Her hat’s white ribbons were drooping as well, and they shook side to side in concert with her. Tears streamed down her face as she desperately tried to get the words out. “I don’t get it. I don’t get anything anymore. There’s only one thing I’m even still sure of. So please, Elisabeth—please, die together with me!”

“And what, may I ask, led you to that particular conclusion?”

Elisabeth’s voice rang with exasperation, but she already knew.

There was no getting through to her. Alice looked like she might listen to reason, but that would never happen.

The fact of the matter was, that one thing really was all that Alice had. She had left too many corpses in her wake. Not even her youth could excuse what she’d done. And Alice herself knew she was past redemption.

Destroying everything was the only option she had.

That was simply the nature of the deeds Alice had wrought.

Before Elisabeth even noticed, Alice was astride her White Knight’s horse. There had been no perceptible change in the interim. It was like an optical illusion—the scene Elisabeth had been looking at had been swapped out for another.

A realization crossed Elisabeth’s mind. Alice and the White Knight were basically one and the same. She hadn’t even needed to speak an incantation to summon him. The only way to beat the Knight would be to kill Alice.

The White Knight raised his lance aloft. If his strike landed, there would be no surviving it.

However, the Kaiser chose not to put any distance between them. Instead, he leaped, using his lithe muscles to propel his black body in a beautiful arc through the air. He bit down on the White Knight’s neck.

As Elisabeth clung to the Kaiser’s back, she reached out her arm.

Then, in unison, they wrenched Alice and the White Knight from the back of their steed.

From there, Elisabeth and the Kaiser dropped their foes from high up.

It was a tactic that was only available to them then, in that moment. Alice’s tears had caused her to let down her guard in a fatal way.

“Huh?” Alice cried in surprise. However, the White Knight remained silent. He had no proper will of his own. Blood spurted out from his windpipe, but he still prioritized Alice above all else.

Still far from steady on his feet, he swung his lance. Elisabeth summoned a new weapon into her hand.

“Whip Sword!”

Her blade extended on its own accord as it curved through the air. By snapping it every which way, Elisabeth succeeded in diffusing the imperfect shock wave. Even so, it was still strong enough to sear her skin. However, she cast her Whip Sword aside all the same. She spared no thought for whatever follow-up attack might be coming. Instead, she readied Executioner’s Sword of Frankenthal and swung it straight down.

Her aim was to gouge out Alice’s heart.

“’Tis over now.”

And in that moment,

it was like time itself stood still.

Her sword cracked.

She hadn’t gouged out Alice’s heart at all. As a matter of fact, her blade had failed to so much as pierce her skin. Fissures ran along its length as it sat motionless atop Alice’s skin. It was as though she’d just tried to stab a hunk of metal.

A profound sense of remorse spread through Elisabeth’s heart as she quietly realized the truth.

Ah. Is that…so.

She was too late.

That single attack the White Knight made back at the Capital had probably marked the final borderline.

The vast quantities of mana Alice obtained had sparked a change in her body. Now no steel nor heat could mar her flesh. There wasn’t a single person in the world who could hurt Alice anymore.

All the King’s horses and all the King’s men

couldn’t kill Alice Carroll again.

Ending her is beyond me now.

Alice seemed to be aware of the change she’d undergone. For a moment, a look of sadness flitted across her face. However, her expression soon changed. She decided to adorn herself in that same innocent obliviousness to the very end.

It was as if to say that, as one who sought to end the world, doing so was her duty.

A stiff smile spread across Alice’s face. She gave her fingers a light snap.

“Good-bye, Elisabeth. This was fun. Really, it was.”

That was the White Knight’s signal. He started by shoving the Kaiser aside, and the black beast left a trail of crushed snowflakes in his wake as he skidded across the ice. Then the White Knight rose to his feet. There was a deep sadness in Alice’s voice. However, the White Knight showed no mercy. He raised his spear and drew it all the way back.

Then he hurled it straight at Elisabeth.

The deadly blow was accompanied by a burning shock wave, and when the Kaiser dived in the way, it pierced him right through.

“…Why?” Elisabeth asked, shouting the question at the speared hound from the bottom of her heart.

“A fair…question. I’m not…quite sure myself,” the Kaiser replied. He sounded oddly pleased.

Cracks formed on his sleek black belly and began spreading outward. This was no ordinary wound he’d suffered. He was starting to shatter, like ceramic that had been exposed to too much heat. One clink rang out after another as little shards of him broke off. With a distant look in his eyes, the Kaiser let out a growl. Then he laughed a very human laugh.

“It’s all his fault. That twisted glass sculpture of a boy—he and He Who Rears Hell Within His Mind both. They fought for you, and somehow or other, I must have ended up thinking it would be a shame to let you die. What a sorry sight I’ve become.”

The Kaiser’s words were self-derisive. Strangely, though, there was no regret in his voice.

The black dog continued cracking. It was a beautiful sight to behold. Instead of seeming cruel, there was actually a sort of dignity to it. The Kaiser rose heavy to his feet, losing parts of himself all the while, and walked his chosen path with the utmost regality.

The supreme hound came to a stop before Elisabeth.

His innumerable fragments shone brilliantly as they scattered into the sky.

At the glowing black center of it all, the Kaiser spoke.

“Tell me, child. Is being human truly this painful? Is this why you tremble and cry out of fear of losing things?”

“I suppose it is, yes. To be human is to know fear.”

“Then you’re a strong lot. Your lives are so pointless, yet instead of dying, you live.”

Black crystals clinked downward. It was like looking at an hourglass. The pile they made must have once comprised the Kaiser’s innards. It was unclear whether or not he felt pain, but if he did, the black hound paid it no heed.

He scowled down at Elisabeth as proud and as lordly as could be.

“Go on, foolish child, and win. Survive. You were the one who slew me…so I forbid you from dying!”

With that, the Kaiser leaped again. A flash of black covered in more cracks than she could count drew an elegant arc through the air.

A second lance strike caught him square in the torso. His gaze, burning with hellfire, landed on Elisabeth.

It was the gaze of someone looking at an absolute fool.

There was something almost human about those eyes,

and they nearly resembled Kaito Sena’s.

A tiny clink rang out.

The most beautiful fragment of all flew up, then vanished.

That was the last of them.

No life remained there.

Elisabeth staggered to her feet. She let out a husky laugh. This time, she shed no tears. Her reserves had run dry long ago. She simply let go of her cracked sword’s handle and shouted. “Alice!”

“…Elisabeth,” Alice replied. She made her White Knight stand down.

Just as before, Alice dropped a spoon into her hand. No blade could cut her. In fact, there wasn’t any sort of attack that could harm her anymore. Yet even so, Elisabeth was prepared to fight to the bitter end.

It was a pathetic display of resistance. However, a silent bellow echoed in Elisabeth’s mind.

I have no regrets.

“I have not a single regret.”

She had certainly made plenty of mistakes, and her wish might well go unanswered.

But the fact remained that she had reached out and grabbed hold of that one frail hope.

“If any dare call that an error, they shall have me to answer to!”

That was why she had no regrets.

Just a single

tiny wish,

not unlike a star.

Elisabeth drew her long sword once more from a swirl of black darkness and crimson flower petals. Her glossy hair swayed behind her as she appeared before the girl. Alice, for her part, was waiting for the Torture Princess without so much as a shred of fear.

Her arms were spread wide, and a broad smile sat plastered across her face.

It was like she was greeting a playmate

and for a moment, time seemed to stand still.

Elisabeth’s sword was raised aloft.

Alice had her spoon in hand.

Crimson and azure petals were cascading all around them.

The Torture Princess brought her sword down

and—

The room was red. It had no windows. It had no doors.

Nobody could leave it. And nobody could come in. It was almost like a graveyard. Or perhaps a prison.

And yet now its nonexistent door had been left wide open.

Inside, Hina was sitting alone. She slowly surveyed the room’s interior.

The room’s interior, dyed all in red.

The room’s interior that, even after getting sealed away in the crystal, Kaito Sena had coated with his blood as he continued absorbing the world’s pain.

She spoke softly.

“You were never fighting alone, Lady Elisabeth.”

And—

Right before Elisabeth and Alice’s blows met

someone reached out and caught them.

The ensuing gale force sent the person’s tattered cloak flapping about. Their hood hung low, obscuring their face, but whoever they were, they had just caught the blades without so much as breaking a sweat.

Elisabeth frowned.

She could tell—if the person hadn’t stepped in, she was the one whose chest would have been gouged out. She looked at the newcomer holding the blades. They really did resemble the Butcher…except for their hands.

Their hands were human.

That was it.

That was her wish.

That tiny, glimmering, starlike,

solitary wish:

to see him again.

With a thousand different emotions swelling up inside her, Elisabeth Le Fanu spoke.

“ Kaito, is that you?”

And—

he nodded.