Fremd Torturchen - Volume 9 - Chapter 1

1

The Final Miracle

It’s time for a story of a boy.

His death was as meaningless as that of a worm—a death most pitiful, most unseemly, most cruel, and most gruesome.

Ordinarily, there is no life after death. But because his soul was summoned to another world, the boy received precisely that opportunity. In truth, he had no desire to be brought back to life. Nevertheless, as soon as he was made flesh again, he was made to serve an overbearing master.

That master was the very person who summoned him: the Torture Princess, Elisabeth Le Fanu.

She had the pride of a wolf and was as lowly as a sow, a sinner ordered by the Church to butcher fourteen ranked demons and the people who had formed contracts with them. Once the task was complete, she herself was destined to face execution. She brought the boy back, and when all was said and done, he made the choice to continue serving her.

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

The boy chose to live a life that would bring about such a tale.

But the world betrayed that expectation,

and the boy’s destiny was radically transformed.

It’s time for a story of a hero.

The world once very nearly met a tragic end. However, that seemingly immutable fate was altered by a single person. And the one who accomplished that miraculous feat was a boy who had reincarnated from another world.

He got a chance at life, then had a number of experiences, some horrifying and some irreplaceable.

Then after a long series of battles, he obtained a colossal amount of mana and used it to save someone precious to him.

And while he was at it, he saved the world.

By sacrificing himself.

After burdening himself with God and Diablo, the boy fell into a deep slumber at the World’s End. Thanks to his deeds, the people of the world managed to avoid the apocalypse. The greatest good for the greatest number was, surely, the greatest outcome.

One could say they lived happily ever after.

As an aside, there was one little fact. Hardly any knew it, and it was of little true importance.

The fact was, the boy and hero were the same person.

Thus did the story of admiration and folly and love come to its end.

After that, they say, everyone lived in comfort and peace forever after.

“Oh, were it only that simple.”

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.

This time, she had no choice but to admit it.

A hot tear

casually rolled down the Torture Princess’s cheek.

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

“ Kaito, is that you?”

The newcomer silently gave each of their blades a shove, and Elisabeth and Alice both leaped back. Upon landing, they reassumed their combat stances. The figure standing between them pulled back their hood.

Now their face was plainly visible.

The first thing that tumbled out of the tattered cloak was a mop of long dark hair, followed shortly by fair skin. Then came a pair of blinking eyes as tranquil as a lake shore. The figure’s hair was the color of the night sky, and their eyes were the color of bones that had been burned to ash.

Elisabeth choked out a murmur.

“You.”

The person in the cloak was not Kaito Sena.

It was, however, a woman Elisabeth knew well.

The woman in question was the centerpiece of the Church’s religion and, at the moment, a fugitive. She was the savior of all creation and a sinner without peer, mother to everything and an impartial reaper. She was the person who reconstructed the world, and she was the person who had beckoned its end.

After a small shake of the head, Elisabeth spoke once more.

“I can hardly say I expected to see you here, Saint.”

The genuine Suffering Woman returned Elisabeth’s gaze. The faintest of smiles crossed her face.

Then the Saint began her gentle speech.

“We meet again, Torture Princess Elisabeth Le Fanu. I don’t believe I’ve seen you since your dream. I’m sorry to have startled you somewhat, but now my wish to see you once more has finally been granted.”

“I…take it that means you’ve not come as my foe?”

“Much to the contrary, in fact. Through God and Diablo—two entities I once harbored within my body—I heard his voice and came to rescue you. He’s unable to come out here himself, but he was able to open a door and speak to me through it. Now I am here to deliver those words to you.”

She extended one hand toward the Torture Princess. Her skin resembled freshly driven snow, and sure enough, there was no hostility in the gesture. The hatred that had once colored her laughter was now gone and forgotten.

“I impart unto you A Message from Him.”

Elisabeth’s eyes went wide. The crystal was farther away than the World’s End. Touching it accomplished nothing, and hearing voices from within was impossible. Yet the Saint was claiming that she had partially overcome that divide.

Sure enough, though, Elisabeth could faintly sense Kaito Sena’s presence coming from the woman before her.

She could sense that kind, vaguely foolish warmth that had once always accompanied her.

Almost on reflex, Elisabeth took the Saint’s hand. That alien quality her palm once had was no more. Now it was faintly warm and faintly soft. The Saint and the Torture Princess looked each other in the eye.

And not a moment later,

a massive bombardment rained down upon them.

The emanations of pain- and hate-filled magic bore a close resemblance to screams.

Go on, cry out. Complain about your pain to your heart’s content. Crush your throats. Burn your lungs. Your tongues and eyes and limbs have been torn from you. You are bound now as fixed batteries, and even death is denied to you. You hurt. For there is pain. You hate. For there is hatred.

However, they didn’t know who it was they should hate.

They didn’t even understand why this was happening to them.

Let’s make the story even simpler, then.

What would a person hate in a situation like that? That’s an easy enough question to answer.

It’s everything.

They would hate the entire world.

Once someone’s pain reached a certain threshold, it burned away any sense of reason they might have had. By screaming, the fixed batteries were able to spread their hatred to their surroundings. Linear blasts of magic burst forth from their mouths, accompanied by heat and shock waves.

Several paladins had emerged from the underground tomb upon catching sight of the Saint, and a good dozen of them were burned to a crisp. Flesh and blood and armor alike melted into the ground, and the bones peeking up from beneath the black sludge crumbled into dust.

Elisabeth watched their grotesque transformations out of the corner of her eye as she waited for the light to pass.

A massive shield stood before her—a wall of briars the Saint had conjured.

Blocked by the wall, the blinding light passed behind them and faded away.

The briars’ roots were coiled around the Saint’s arm. Her already-tattered cloak split even further, and she began bleeding all over. That aside, that single wall was all she needed to block the attack. Whether she wished it or not, the Suffering Saint’s very existence was rooted in the concept of self-sacrifice, and her magic reflected that fact.

“Hurting yourself to protect yourself? What a peculiar technique. I must say, I’m a little disappointed that didn’t kill you.”

The hollow murmur came from Alice—the same little girl who’d given the order for the fixed batteries to fire.

She pursed her lips with her hands clasped behind her back. Her blue dress was just as adorable as always, yet the way she looked in it now gave Elisabeth the impression of something that it never had before.

It reminded her of a gargantuan stomach.

To her, Alice seemed like a bloated organ, hideously pulsating and ever ravenous.

Elisabeth shuddered in horror as she realized why she felt that way.

The amount of mana Alice was wielding was unusually large. And what’s more, it was growing steadily.

It didn’t make sense.

At the moment, she already had more mana at her disposal than the Torture Princess did. Now that was always going to happen eventually. The Fremd Torturchen was a limitless vessel. The fact that she had the capacity to surpass Elisabeth was the whole reason she was even there.

The problem was…

…’tis too fast! What in the blazes did she even… How many did she consume, and where did she even do it?

“As long as you die this time, I think it should be fine. It’s okay, remember! We’re allll going to die together!”

Alice smiled. Cheerily. She raised her right arm high, and flower petals began swirling azure around her fingers.

The fixed batteries opened their mouths in unison.

In an instant, she and the batteries would unleash a magical technique coupled with raw magical destruction at the same time.

Then, out of the blue, Alice’s arm got rent to the side.

Red blood shot out from the wound and sprayed her in the face. However, she didn’t so much as twitch an eyebrow.

The blood transformed into a fresh wave of petals, and most of it gathered at Alice’s wrist to heal her wound. Some of it, though, took on a different form and coalesced into a bizarre-looking swarm of bread-and-butterflies.

The swarm flew at Alice’s attacker, shedding off butter-colored scales in its wake.

The slender woman beat a hasty retreat with her silver hair fluttering behind her. “Rgh! Looks like I’m not going to get anywhere trying to take her down.”

Elisabeth recognized her voice in an instant. She called to the woman by name. “Izabella!”

Izabella tried to reply by giving her a wave.

The moment she did, though, another bombardment rained down on them. The screamed blasts were as simple as they were powerful. However, they made up for that with sheer quantity. The linear attacks came from both high and low, and Izabella had to dance her way between all of them. She cast off her cloak in midair before safely landing back on the ground.

There was a limit to how much she could dodge, however, and she slid in behind the Saint’s shield before her luck had a chance to run out.

She stood beside Elisabeth and panted for breath. A good chunk of the mechanical section of her face had been melted like butter. She had the butterfly scales to thank for that, no doubt. Izabella forced the gears in her cheek to spin faster than usual.

By the look of it, she was having to accelerate the rate at which her organic parts regrew themselves.

When she turned to face her two shieldmates, her blue and purple eyes widened a bit. As the leader of the Holy Knights, seeing the Saint in the flesh like that probably affected her more than most. However, she valiantly regained her composure, then spoke.

“I apologize for my delayed arrival. I was talking to my men patrolling the city about revising our defensive perimeter when it all happened. At the moment, I have them heading up the evacuation efforts. As for you, uh, ma’am, I’m sorry, but you’re not the most important thing on my plate right now. Madam Elisabeth, have you noticed?”

“Noticed what, Izabella? Do you mean to say there’s a matter more pressing than what’s going on right in front of us?”

“There is. Those fixed batteries aren’t just here. They’re appearing all over the capital. Demon grandchildren, too. And from the reports I’m getting…Alice attacked a series of towns and villages on her way here. We’re getting distress calls from some, but there’s probably far more that were hit, and even the ones with survivors were all but wiped out.”

Her expression was racked with grief. Elisabeth nodded.

That was a method only the Fremd Torturchen could have used. Furthermore, it was one that had been unavailable to her back when she was operating within the framework of rebellion and following its strict methods and logic.

There was no limit to the amount of mana Alice could hold within herself. She had no laws she was beholden to, and as someone who was already dead, she had nowhere to run.

As long as she had vast quantities available for her consumption, she had little reason to inquire about their quality, nor did she have any need to consider the bill that might eventually come due. She could simply make like a swarm of locusts, descending and eating ravenously until nothing remained. Then, upon finishing one bloody plate, she could just toss it aside and move on to the next one. She would devour and devour with no regard paid for maintaining the world’s balance and, in doing so, make herself ruler of the dining table.

Elisabeth gave her tongue a small click.

“Ah, I see… That explains her vast reserves of mana, I suppose.”

“We thought she had started a war on us, but we’re not the only ones who have suffered losses. The mixed-race folk are in shambles as well. Lewis’s grim legacy is loose. This is no longer a rebellion.”

Izabella shook her head, her jewel-like eyes burning with an unmistakable fury as she laid out the horrible truth.

“Alice Carroll’s only goal is to destroy the world.”

There was a truth Elisabeth knew—a truth that Kaito Sena himself was living proof of.

The “conception” possessed by those who met cruel deaths could form the basis for limitless magical growth. But what if there wasn’t anything that the person in question wanted to accomplish? A hollow vessel had the power to change its shape at will.

It was impossible to tell what it would give the world and what it would do.

Would it love or would it hate?

Would it be just or would it be evil?

Lewis failed to see the implication…failed to notice the danger. As did Alice herself, for that matter. “This time, I’m going to accomplish everything I set out to do.” Nobody even considered what would become of the script if that “everything” took a turn for the worse.

Lewis’s story of repentance, dreams, and hatred had laid the foundation. Once he was done atoning for all the people he hadn’t been able to save, he dreamed of creating a perfect utopia. Just as Vlad pointed out, though, that dream was based on lies and self-deception. And on top of that, Alice was terribly young, and in the end, the innocence of her youth let her see through Lewis’s smoke and mirrors. She had, in the truest sense of the word, inherited his hatred.

Now she was trying to grant his most fervent wish. Love, hate, justice, and evil had nothing to do with it.

Her sole aim was for everyone to die.

That was all.

And nothing more.

Alice Carroll had broken beyond repair.

Nobody could put her together again.

All this was happening because Lewis had been killed. But that wasn’t the whole story. The mixed-race people being killed had started it as well, as had Alice’s—that was, Sara Yuuki’s—brutal death.

By now, they were all avengers. Everyone hated everyone.

And the world kept on turning, just as properly as ever.

And in that moment, a thought crossed Elisabeth’s mind.

A thought she couldn’t afford to harbor.

“…Why should Kaito have to—?”

“Elisabeth.”

Then, out of nowhere, she heard Kaito Sena’s voice.

It was the voice of one who had died to save the world.

And it was a voice of one she adored dearly.

“Please, never come to loathe this world again. No matter what happens, never internalize sin again. You and I worked together and protected this world. Please, never think it’s not worth saving.”

“……!”

It was like he had read Elisabeth’s mind. She gasped.

She was a hair’s breadth from barking out an angry reply, but she stopped herself. Kaito Sena wasn’t the one who’d said that.

The words were his, but they were coming from the mouth of another.

The speaker’s gaze was gentle, and Elisabeth saw herself reflected in the woman’s ashen eyes.

The Torture Princess sighed, then posed a question to the Saint. “That’s his message, then?”

“It is. However, there’s more. And if anything, the continuation is the most important part…but it would be best delivered after the current situation is dealt with. If this goes on, many will perish. It’s an act of blasphemy against the world for me to be concerned about that, I know. But the necessity remains.”

“Aye… ’Tis imperative those fixed batteries be destroyed.”

Elisabeth shook her head, then clapped her cheeks to fire herself up. The Saint replied with a small nod, clutching at her tattered cloak as she turned her focus to the batteries. Elisabeth followed her gaze.

The fixed batteries were lethally impeding their ability to fight Alice, and the reincarnators were beyond saving. Granting them a swift death was their best recourse. However, Elisabeth knew it wouldn’t be that simple.

A young girl stood smiling before the batteries.

It was Alice Carroll. The Fremd Torturchen.

If they wanted to make it easier to kill her, they needed to get past her first. A contradiction among contradictions. However, this was no time to be holding back. Elisabeth snapped her fingers with a bellow.

“Splendid Executioner: The Boondock Saints!”

“Oh my, it’s so sparkly!”

Alice’s reaction was as innocent as could be. She held her hands up over her head, and a light flashed from between her fingers.

Slabs of metal tumbled one after another from the eddy of darkness and crimson flower petals, each a massive blade designed to assemble into a grand executioner. As the metal purposefully wove itself together, it headed for the fixed batteries and obliterated them—or rather, it tried to. However, the parts were struck before they could fall into place, and the hard metal shattered in midair.

The pieces shifted back into crimson flower petals and splayed out like splashes of blood. But it wasn’t a bombardment that had felled them.

It was a lance strike.

“My White Knight.”

Before Elisabeth’s eyes, Alice was sitting astride a knight’s horse. She was the very image of a fairy-tale princess.

The knight guarding his young liege was picturesque as well, clad as he was in his pure-white armor. He glared down at everything that entered his gaze as he raised his helmet’s visor. There was no emotion in his eyes, but his features bore a striking resemblance to the human half of Lewis’s face. It had taken but a single strike from his lance to shatter the Executioner before it could finish forming.

Alice chuckled. “Say, did you know? In the strange, strange world of Through the Looking-Glass, the White Knight is the only one who fights for Alice’s sake from the very beginning. I would’ve liked for Father to get a chance to read Alice’s wondrous stories. But now he can’t. And he never will.”

Midway through, her voice took on a cold harshness. She stopped swaying her legs back and forth.

As though reacting to his master’s displeasure, the White Knight raised his lance aloft. Elisabeth immediately sensed the danger she was in. She mentally splayed out her hand, and the Torture Princess selected the appropriate card.

“La Guillotine, Saint of Beheadings!”

“And that’s why it’s time for me to get serious,” Alice declared with a vacant look in her eyes.

Elisabeth cast her spell.

Six black-and-crimson swirls materialized in front of the Saint’s briar wall. At the moment, that was the most Elisabeth was capable of deploying at once. A white doll burst out from each of them and landed heavy on the ground. They were white maidens, each made to embody the holiest of saints. Upon seeing them, the bona fide Saint narrowed her ashen eyes a smidgen.

Before her, the maidens raised their heads. Their straight-cut silver hair swayed briskly.

Without a moment’s delay, Elisabeth clicked her heels.

The maidens crossed their pale arms atop their chests, then spread them wide. Rectangular blades shot loudly from their elbows.

The Knight gave his lance a mighty swing, and a fierce shock wave slammed into the blades. The first pair shattered, the second pair split, the third pair burst, the fourth pair split, and the fifth pair twisted. Only the sixth pair made it to Alice.

“Too bad, so sad.”

Alice smiled and gave the blades a little poke. They crumbled into chunks, spilling down atop Alice’s knees and bursting into crimson petals as they landed on her blue dress’s skirt.

Meanwhile, La Guillotines fell victim to the lance’s aftershock as well. Their heads came off, their torsos contorted, and their limbs were shredded to ribbons. The maidens collapsed. Elisabeth fought to quell her panic, then let out a low murmur. “No match, huh? I see she’s been eating well.”

This was no longer the same Alice Carroll as before.

No more was she Alice, Lewis’s beloved daughter.

What was she, then? She was nothing and no one.

Alice’s white hair bobbed as she recited lines as though to introduce herself. “Beware the Jabberwock, my son! The jaws that bite, the claws that catch! …Hee-hee, just kidding.”

She blinked her red eyes and smiled. A thought crossed Elisabeth’s mind.

What was Alice now? If she were forced to do the impossible and define her…

…then ’twould be “something that ought not to exist in this world.”

This was the result of an alien reincarnator having fulfilled a narrow set of conditions.

She may not have been on Kaito Sena’s level, but all the same,

the world wasn’t built to contain one such as she.

The Saint’s voice was dispassionate and barely louder than a whisper. “Well, this is a problem. The longer we remain at this standstill, the more people will perish, and the worse the situation will become.” There was no sign of fear in her gaze, but her gray eyes wavered ever so slightly.

Elisabeth nodded in agreement. The destruction was spreading, and Alice was only going to amass more mana as she claimed more victims. At the moment, though, the biggest problem was their current position.

The thing was, they were standing before the temporary royal castle. It was the most strategically important location humanity had.

The saints’ greatest forces—La Mules, La Christoph—are already dead. And Vlad is no more. That leaves me, Izabella…and Jeanne de Rais, who’s doubtless observing from some vantage point. If the three of us fall…mankind will be left without a path to victory.

Elisabeth furrowed her brow as she thought. They had countless pieces at their disposal, but only a few assets with any real strength to them. The vast majority of their pieces were all but useless. It was the same reason why Kaito Sena had had to become the Mad King, way back when.

Elisabeth could tell by that point, the plan to apprehend Alice and forcibly transfer Diablo to her was a pipe dream. The situation as it stood was that if they failed to kill her here and now, and instead fell in the process, humanity would not survive.

Then there was the matter of those who felt the need to move about freely despite their complete and utter uselessness.

“Lady Saint! We never expected to find Your Holiness in a place like this!”

“What are you all doing out here?!” Izabella barked at the paladins. “Get back underground and protect the king!”

“But—!”

Despite her sharp rebuke, that was one order they were loath to follow, even coming from their esteemed commander.

The small group had successfully made their way to the Saint unharmed. In all likelihood, Alice had spared them because she found them amusing. “But we have to help the Saint!” they argued back at Izabella.

All emotion vanished from the Saint’s ashen eyes, and she responded to their pleas in a voice void of warmth. “Did you people not hear of my loathing? I never loved you, and even now your faith is nothing more than a nuisance to me. Nearly all the tales your Church shared of me were rooted in mistakes and errors. Yet you say you love me still, knowing that love to be folly? Are you people truly that incorrigible?”

“Absolutely!”

The Saint’s cynical, reproachful question was met with a resolute reply. Her mouth hung half-open in exasperation. However, the paladins were undeterred. They puffed up their chests in simple pride.

“We know full well how many lies there were, and the Church’s influence is nothing compared to its splendid days of yore. But even so, you were the one who made the world. That means that everything good in it came about because of you. What cause do we have, then, to lose our respect for you?! Our hearts are unchanging, Your Holiness! The Church may have been incorrect, but it was never errant. So, as such!”

They thumped their large shields against the ground in succession. The shields were finely crafted, with blessings from priests carved into their very surfaces, and they offered a high degree of protection against dark magic. Sadly, though, against Alice, they might as well have been made of paper.

However, they positioned themselves in front of the Saint in an attempt to defend her all the same.

The fools went on.

“We paladins believe in your suffering! You may have once hated us, but you still shouldered pain on behalf of ignorant wretches like us. That truth is noble in and of itself.”

“Ah… True enough.”

The Saint bit her lip and clenched her fists. A sort of difficult-to-describe passion crossed her expression for the first time.

Elisabeth was well aware of the anguish the Saint had been through.

Flocks of sheep were, fundamentally, stupid. And that was the way things ought to be. But was that ignorance not truly a sin?

That fact—that hatred—had been an obsession for the Saint. Now her entire body was trembling.

Alice, who’d been watching everything play out, called over to them.

“Are you done with story time now? In that case, I think it’s time for everyone’s insides to become outsides!”

Alice rested her cheek softly against the Knight’s back, and the Knight responded by raising his lance up high.

Then he pointed it at the paladins.

“If any deserve to have stones cast at them, if any deserve to be whipped, it is I.”

The Saint stepped forward.

She moved as calmly as if she were walking on water,

and as she did, she began shedding tears of blood from one eye.

It’s time for a story.

A tale from long, long ago.

Once upon a time, a preeminent genius was born in a world where war waged without end. Once she grew up, she realized that the cycle of violence and hatred was fruitless. Humanity, beastfolk, and demi-humans were all equal. Every living creature was ignorant, and every living creature was like a stupid animal.

That was why she had to save them.

After steadying her resolve to bring about salvation, she got to work. But she screwed up the method about as badly as she could have.

And so, with a pop

the world broke.

Because of that, she had to carry out an atonement. But at the same time, she found herself struck by a particular question.

She had tried to save the world. Yet for the rest of eternity, no one would ever consider what she had truly felt. They would hear only what they wanted to hear, see only what they wanted to see. Flocks of sheep were, fundamentally, stupid.

That was the way things ought to be. But at the end of the day, was that not truly a sin?

Was it?

Truly?

“You were absolutely right, Mad King. All living creatures are nothing more than ignorant, stupid animals. And that’s what makes them worth protecting. Despite their ignorance, there is good in them. Our present situation was brought about by a confluence of all sins, mine included. Yet even so, nobody has the right to cast all people as sinners and judge them all as deserving of death.”

As the Saint spoke, her briars spread outward like a wave. Ivy rose up to block the lance strike. However, over half of it ended up getting sliced to bits. The shredded briar scattered. Then roses began blooming from the torn cross sections.

A wave of azure and crimson gently swallowed up the lance’s shock wave, and thousands of petals went dancing brilliantly through the air.

However, that came with a price. The briars coiled themselves tight around the Saint, and blood gushed from her slender frame.

The paladins let out cries bordering on screams. They called over to her in a panic.

“Lady Saint! Lady Saint, your body!”

The Saint offered no reply to their worried shouts. She just silently held her ground and watched carefully for when the next blast would come. Then, drenched in violent red as she was, she spoke with great deliberation.

“I have spent a long time thinking about atonement. It consumed my thoughts, day in and day out—as did what the Mad King said to me.”

As the lance strike vanished, Elisabeth leaped into action.

At the moment, it was essential she buy time. She let out a small murmur.

“Honey Candy.”

Honey began streaming down Alice’s neck. Lilies had manifested in the air, and the golden liquid was spilling out from them.

Next, a swarm of ants climbed up the glistening wave. They started gnawing on the honey and the arteries that sat beneath it.

“Ack! What’s going on?! This is nasty!”

Based on Alice’s screams, it would seem she was still vulnerable to physiological disgust. The plan was absurd, but it had worked nonetheless.

Meanwhile, the Saint unraveled her briars for a time. She collapsed backward, like the strings holding her up had just been cut. The paladins rushed over to her. However, Izabella got to her first and propped up the Saint’s gaunt back as she spoke. “Lady Saint, please don’t do anything rash. If you hold still, I can get you healed—”

“‘You just chose to be alone, that’s all.’ That’s what he said to me. And he was right.”

The Saint didn’t respond to her offer. Izabella said nothing to that, instead choosing to quickly cast some basic healing magic on her.

As she did, the Saint continued her vacant murmuring. It was like she was giving a confession.

“I went on a journey, and I saw that with my own eyes. Trade was bustling; the child did his job well. There were many who recognized this tattered cloak. He was called Butcher, he was loved, and he lived a good life, yet he never abandoned his task or forsook me. How, then, am I to repay him after I abandoned him so?”

Elisabeth bit her lip. As she’d suspected, the Saint’s outfit and its resemblance to the Butcher’s had been an intentional choice on her part. Now, at long last, the Saint realized what it was she had lost. However, Elisabeth could think of nothing to say to her. The Butcher was dead.

Regretting that now was an act of gross arrogance. Death closed all doors.

Nothing she did would ever be able to reach him.

Then the sound of burning fire filled their ears. It was accompanied by an adorable singsong voice.

“Goodness me, it’s hot. Or should I say that it hurts, I wonder?”

Elisabeth’s eyes went wide. Of all the ways Alice could have dealt with the ants, she had chosen to light herself on fire.

The flames consumed her white hair, charring her skin as it bubbled and burst. Elisabeth surreptitiously shot a volley of stakes at her, but those went up in flames as well. However, all of Alice’s burns healed right up.

A moment later, her auto-immolated skin was as pristine and unscarred as if nothing had happened.

Izabella, somewhat shocked by the rapid back-and-forth, let out a whisper.

“Madam Elisabeth, would you be able to make another opening? She appears to still have some human sensation left in her. I was able to cut her arm, so if Jeanne and I aim for her neck this time—”

“Best not. Even if you lopped her head clean off, she would merely sew it back on. Gouging out her heart might get us somewhere, but anything short of that, even piercing it through, would be as useless as beheading her. Her regenerative capabilities are unfathomable—much as Kaito’s were at the end, when he reached the point of no longer needing a heart.”

“Then what would you suggest? I find it difficult to imagine us ever finding an opening that big,” Izabella replied in consternation.

Elisabeth focused her crimson gaze on Alice’s innocent figure.

As she tried to gauge Alice’s mana reserves and current capabilities, she thought through her options.

Bull of Phalaris, Pied Piper of Hamelin… No, it’s no use. It would take her little effort to overcome whatever I threw at her, even with ostentatious techniques such as those. The time they would buy isn’t worth the mana they would cost me. But this chance we have now… We may not get another…

Unlike Kaito Sena, Alice was still ostensibly mortal. All they needed to do was outpace her incredible regeneration, and that would be that. However, Elisabeth had no idea how they were supposed to accomplish that. Alice’s current strength was second only to the Mad King’s.

Amid that air of frigid tension, the Saint moved once more. She pushed Izabella back and rose unsteadily to her feet. Then she spread her arms out and, without hesitation, stepped forward.

“Shouldering everything is a sad, lonely lot. And thus—”

A trio of lances struck her briars.

Even more blood gushed from the Saint’s body. The paladins cried out again, shouting “Lady Saint!” like children calling out for their mother. A few of them even rushed forward, upon which the Saint grabbed them with her vines and dragged them back.

That was when Elisabeth realized that the Saint’s feet were no longer touching the ground. The briars were wound tighter around her than ever before, and their vines were holding her up and anchoring her in the air.

It was like looking at a crucifixion.

The Saint went on, her voice practically a hymn.

“—I will act on behalf of that which I hated, that which I discarded, that which I tried to destroy—and that which the child loved.”

Blood trickled down through her messy black hair. She didn’t scream or cry, and there was nothing reflected in her ashen eyes but void. She stared forward, searching for someone that was no longer there.

And in that moment, though she didn’t know why,

Elisabeth found herself reminded of some very sad words.

Through her tears, she spoke. “Thank you for being born unto me,” she said.

That was all. And that was enough.

I had fun.

Madam Elisabeth, Mr. Dim-Witted Servant, Ms. Lovely Maid, really, truly, and deeply.

And finally, thank you so much for your many years of patronage.

Elisabeth felt as though she saw a cloak-clad figure waving off in the distance.

She shouted at the top of her lungs.

“This isn’t the way, Saint! The Butcher would never have wanted you to sacrifice yourself in atonement!”

“I imagine you’re right. That’s why I’m not doing this as the Saint. This is my story.”

By then the Saint was already high in the air. Red drops dripped from her feet.

The paladins let out voiceless screams. They dropped—practically crumpled—to their knees and began fervently praying. The only one who remained standing was Izabella, who clenched her fists tight like she was forcing herself to endure.

The Saint didn’t mock the paladins for their incorrigible display.

She simply spoke, there at the center of their prayers, as a single, lone individual.

“This is my tale of repentance, dreams, and hatred.”

Determination’s light glowed in her expression, and a hitherto unseen strength peeked out from her red eyes.

Elisabeth realized something as she saw her face.

Long ago, when a solitary genius destroyed the world, atoned, and hated,

she probably wore the exact same expression.

“Let me tell you something about me, Elisabeth. I was powerless to do anything. Yet for the longest, longest time, I only wanted one single thing—I wanted to protect the world. I can’t believe it took me so long to remember, but…I once…had a dream.”

Droplets of blood, too many of them to count, rained down from her body.

A change began taking place in the ground. Briars began growing from the bloodstains, like the earth itself had just received mana from the heavens. They grew at a shocking rate, faster than they ever had before. Roses bloomed all over. Petals fell from the sky, painting a pattern of azure and crimson roses onto everything they touched. The wind carried them, and the magic propagated.

After spreading outward without end, they began glowing.

The lines spread all across the Capital, and at the center of them all, Alice’s childish face contorted. “What is this? Why, I don’t even know. I can’t decipher the pattern, no matter how hard I look. What’s…going on?”

“My technical command is still unparalleled, if nothing else. I lost most of my mana when I transferred God and Diablo out of my body. I suppose I only have myself to blame. Now I find myself in a state where I can be forced to yield in the face of overwhelming violence. For now, though, I ask that you accompany me, O ye who would replace me as the enemy of the world,” the Saint intoned.

The cold, rational part of Elisabeth finally realized something—there was no need to actually stop her.

During the battle, the Saint had determined that she couldn’t hold out for long, and so she’d made her choice. And part of that choice had involved using a once-in-a-lifetime technique to draw the largest teleportation circle anyone had ever seen.

Roses rained down from the heavens, and countless petals danced through the air in celebration. It made for an extravagant, gorgeous sight.

It was like they were trying to paint a beautiful painting atop a canvas with nothing on it.

Their painting had nothing but beauty,

but oh, how beautiful it was.

“What was your real name, Saint?!”

Seized by impulse, Elisabeth shouted. This was her last chance. She needed to know. Just as the Mad King was Kaito Sena, so too must she have had a name. Whether or not ignorance was a sin, it was certainly at least sad. Elisabeth couldn’t let things end without anyone having ever heard it.

A look of mute shock crossed the Saint’s face. A few seconds later, her expression softened for the first time.

And then

she merely shook her head.

She murmured gently.

“I never gave him a name.”

And so it’s fine.

This is right.

“What could possibly be right about that?!” Elisabeth screamed.

Long ago, Kaito Sena had once expressed a similar sentiment about the Butcher’s decision. However, the Saint stubbornly refused to give them her name. She only opened her mouth a single time more.

And from her soft lips,

the True Message came.

Elisabeth’s eyes went wide. However, she didn’t have time to reply.

The petals’ dance grew into a storm, and the light flashed. It wasn’t just in the plaza there—everyone attacking the Capital got sucked in. The Saint’s smile faded from view, as did the tears running down her cheeks.

She was losing the last vestiges of her human expression.

And there, at the very end,

she murmured as though she could hear something.

“You’re right… I had fun, too… And so…”

Thank you so much

for being born unto me.

And as she spoke to the empty air,

the Saint vanished and took Alice with her.

To fight on her own,

and to die alone.

“That didn’t…just happen, right? Lady Saint… Lady Saint!”

“We just bore witness to a miracle. For what would you call that, if not a miracle?!”

The various paladins’ shouts echoed through the space where their foe no longer was. As they clamored, they stared straight ahead. Alice and the fixed batteries were still alive. The Saint was going to die by their hands.

That was a certainty.

However, that meant that the Capital—and the world—would survive for that much longer.

On top of that, the scene before them was well deserving of being called a miracle.

It wasn’t clear how it worked, but even now that the light had died out, the briars still remained. Their vines were wound in intricate patterns, and they stretched into the sky in the shape of a cross. And what’s more, the entire sublime fixture was still covered in azure and crimson flower petals.

Each time the wind blew, it filled the air with a dancing cloud of colors.

As the petals landed among her raven locks, Elisabeth had a thought.

True enough. This is a miracle.

In the end, the sinner who tried to save the world,

that solitary genius, powerless to do anything,

had brought about the impossible.