Fremd Torturchen - Volume 9 - Chapter 9

9

A Waltz for Two

In truth, she knew it was never going to happen.

But still, she wanted to dream.

The place where Jeanne de Rais once lived had been home to nothing but death. It was a remote place surrounded by cliffs, and everyone there lived knowing that death would someday take them. To them, Jeanne was nothing but a puppet meant to massacre them all. In order to create their fervent entreaty, the alchemists put their very lives on the line.

“Grant us our wish, O Torture Princess. Send us to our eternal rest.”

Jeanne had no desire to speak ill of their pride, nor did she intend to ridicule the cause they’d spent so long believing in.

Otherwise, she wouldn’t have put in the work she had to see their dream to fruition and to become the maiden of salvation.

As far as how she actually felt went, though, she had just one thing to say.

“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’.”

The alchemists hadn’t let emotions influence their actions.

To them, there was only death. And that coldness of theirs had been Jeanne’s entire world.

But then she found something warm.

Izabella was the first beautiful person she had ever met, and even after all the machine parts Jeanne had augmented her with, Izabella had retained her kindness. She was so gallant, so lovely, and always so warm.

Izabella took her hand.

Izabella didn’t shy away from her blood.

Izabella cried for her sake.

Izabella lamented her wounds.

And so, Jeanne let herself believe.

She’d even had a foolishly sappy exchange about it.

“Marriage!”

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

She’d wanted so badly to believe.

Like a maiden in the midst of a dream.

“In truth, I knew it was never going to happen. But still, I wanted to dream of something beautiful.”

There was no time to dodge the White Knight’s throw.

In all likelihood, just about everyone was dead.

Vyadryavka? Darius? The paladins? The Royal Knights? The saints? The beastfolk?

Rubble fell.

Fire rained down.

They eclipsed everything.

All of them?

Elisabeth’s crimson eyes went wide. She found herself at a loss for words.

Before her, she could see the solid line that had been gouged out of the city. Fire licked at the gash. It was like looking at a meteor’s landing site. The civilians had been evacuated already, but all the combatants were dead. There was little chance any of them had survived.

Alice quietly raised her head. She posed her question with the indifference of a queen. “Now it’s truly over. Really and truly. Later, I’ll make sure to go kill the king who conspired with all those knights and saints, too. So are we done playing tag now?”

She calmly cocked her head to the side. The look in her eyes made her intent perfectly clear. If the game was over, she was going to begin her massacre. She wasn’t even giving Elisabeth time to mourn the dead. Alice was a queen now, and her heart had no mercy in it.

Elisabeth shook off her shock for the moment.

She was just about to give her unhesitating answer, but then another voice cut in.

“Not yet. We’re still here, aren’t we? Open your damn eyes, girl.”

“We, married couple Izabella Vicker and Jeanne de Rais, will be your opponents.”

The woman of gold and the woman of silver strode forward. The former’s right hand and the latter’s left hand were clasped tightly together with their fingers interwoven.

Elisabeth bit her lip. The two of them were strong, to be sure. But they were no match for the Fremd Torturchen. And the gap between their strength and hers should have been obvious to them.

Yet even so, they didn’t let go of each other’s hands, and they didn’t flee.

The sheer depth of their resolve was plain for Elisabeth to see. However, she raised her voice anyway. “Jeanne, Izabella—this is beyond you. You’ve done enough!”

“You said it yourself once. ‘If any dared tell me what to do, I’d lend them no ear.’ ‘The burden of your choice shall be yours alone to shoulder.’ And ‘Saving the world and destroying it are but mere matters of personal selfishness,’” Jeanne replied.

Those were words that Elisabeth had spoken long ago at the World’s End.

Elisabeth let out a small gasp. Sure enough, choosing to live or die was a burden that only a person themselves could shoulder. No matter what lay beyond, nobody had the right to stop them from making that decision. However, Elisabeth started to argue anyway. Before she could, however, Jeanne went on with a serene look in her eyes. “Do you have any regrets, foolish lady?”

“What nonsense are you spouting, now? At this eleventh hour, how—?”

“Could I possibly still have regrets,” she tried to finish. This was supposed to be a battle she was going to her death in. The very fact she was there should have refuted the very notion. But she couldn’t do it.

For in that moment,

“Ah—”

Elisabeth remembered.

It all hit her, whether she wanted it to or not.

That one wish she had, the wish not unlike a star.

Jeanne snorted upon seeing Elisabeth’s reaction. She spoke in a tone both severe and matter-of-fact. “You want to stop us. And when you succeed, you’ll end up dying in our place, but—‘you can’t seriously tell me you paid a single thought as to whether you’d regret it or not!’”

This time, the words were ones that Kaito Sena had once spoken.

Jeanne had been torn about whether or not to kill Izabella back at the World’s End, and that was what Kaito had told Jeanne to help her see that she wanted to save Izabella. Now Jeanne had taken that same comment and turned it back on Elisabeth.

There was no way Elisabeth could lie, not when faced with those words.

She was totally and completely beaten.

Recognizing that, she steered the Kaiser in a new direction. If those two were going to stay, then it was Elisabeth’s job to leave. Having all of them get taken out in one fell swoop would be counterproductive to their goal of buying time.

Elisabeth quietly proceeded onward. Her black hair fluttered behind her. However, she did make one half whisper of a comment. “Forgive me. I shall follow you shortly hereafter.”

“If all goes well, you won’t have to. I ain’t plannin’ on goin’ down easy, y’know.”

“That’s right, Jeanne,” Izabella agreed. “I…wait, ‘I’? Don’t you mean ‘we’ won’t—hey, whoa, aaaaaah!”

Instead of answering the question, Jeanne snapped her fingers.

When she did, all of Izabella’s machine parts burst into motion.

In accordance with Jeanne’s orders, they started moving on their own, and Izabella’s legs broke into a run regardless of what Izabella herself desired. She raced down the path that had been carved through the city. In what seemed like no time at all, she was already gone from sight.

After checking to make sure that Izabella had fled far enough away, Jeanne nodded all on her own. “You hoped for a future together with me. You brought me happiness…and that alone is enough. Good-bye, my beloved. May you find a more suitable partner, and may you live happily ever after with them.”

Jeanne gave her a little wave, much the way a child would. However, she immediately squeezed her pale hand tight. She turned toward Alice and focused her rose-colored eyes straight on her.

Then, for the very first time in her life,

Jeanne broke into a gentle smile.

She faced the Fremd Torturchen and spoke.

“Would you mind if we talked for a bit, young lady?”

“Talked?”

It was such a fair and radiant expression

that Alice couldn’t help but stop mid-attack.

For a moment, Alice was taken aback. She seemed captivated by Jeanne’s expression. However, she hurriedly pulled herself back together. She spoke in a tizzy. “A-ahh. You’re trying to buy time, aren’t you? But I’m not going to fall for that. Crushing you will be ever so easy. You should know that no one is coming to save you.”

“You’re not wrong. It would be a lie to say that I’m uninterested in buying time. But more than that…I’ve wanted to chat with you for a good long while now.”

Jeanne’s expression was as serious as could be, and her words were unblemished by falsehoods.

Alice squinted at her. She still found the whole thing rather suspicious, but she bade her White Knight to lower his lance for the time being.

Jeanne gave her a small nod by way of thanks, then went on with great eloquence. “I’m an artificially made Torture Princess. The moment I was born, I was entrusted with a mission to save the world. ‘Grant us our wish, O Torture Princess. Send us to our eternal rest.’ I won’t speak ill of their request, and I intend to honor their pride. But still…what they gave me was unmistakably a curse.”

The slightest of gleams shone in Jeanne’s rose eyes. Alice arched a suspicious eyebrow at her. Given her expression, she didn’t understand what Jeanne was getting at, but she definitely had a bad feeling about it.

Alice gulped down her saliva. Her voice trembled a little as she urged Jeanne to go on. “…What are you saying?”

“I’m talking about repentance, hatred, and dreams. He probably apologized to you as he entrusted you with his dream. But really, that dream was nothing more than a bald-faced hatred toward the world. I mean, you cottoned on to that, right?”

A flash of terror ran across Alice’s face. The tremendous power she wielded was the furthest thing from her mind, and she tried to clamp her hands over her ears. Before she could, though, Jeanne went on and whispered the thing that nobody else had pointed out.

Her words gouged at that still-fresh wound.

“He loved you, no doubt—but there wasn’t any love in that dyin’ wish of his.”

“Off With Her Head!”

Alice cast her spell, and an executioner’s ax appeared in midair. However, all it managed to lop off were a few tufts of Jeanne’s hair. Alice was so shaken it had affected her aim. She was quivering all over.

Jeanne’s eyes flashed like jewels as she blinked them. She quietly went on. “That isn’t what love is.”

“Shut up, just, just shut up already!”

“Izabella, my beloved, held my hand. She didn’t shy away from my blood. She cried for me. She lamented my wounds. And if she was to die, then no matter how it happened, she would say one thing and one thing alone to me.”

Jeanne looked down at her finger—and at the gleaming blue ring resting on it. With how dire the situation was, they hadn’t been able to get the real deal, and that was what she’d been given in the meantime. Jeanne planted a kiss on it and continued.

“‘Go on and find happiness without me.’”

“Stop it! Stop…stop…please, just stop…”

“You had a curse placed on you. The dreams of the dying ain’t worth shit. They’re just burdens, weighing down the livin’. So why not just put a stop to all this? I mean, you go and smash up the whole world, and what’ll you really be left with?”

Alice hunched over and began violently trembling. She looked around nervously. However, there was nobody to answer for her. For Alice was alone. She cried and cried and bit down hard on her lip.

Then she shook her head and spat out her reply like one would a mouthful of blood. “I know that. I knew it already, I really did. But in their heart of hearts, everyone has just one thing that truly matters to them. If they can’t have that, then what can they have? I’m the only one who understands Father’s sorrow. So it’s fine. I’m not going to stop. This is my choice, and I’ve made it.”

Alice violently wiped away her tears. She glared forward with all her might.

Then, like a proper adult woman, she spoke plainly and definitively.

“I choose to accept Father as he was.”

Alice had decided to fulfill his wish. No longer would she hesitate, and no longer would she falter.

In that moment, Alice accepted it all. She chose to affirm her father’s hatred, then made her final decision. And by doing so, she was spelling the world’s doom. It was a tragic path to choose, but the love that had inspired it was admirable.

Someone she wished was alive had been killed. He had entrusted her with his dream. And she had accepted it, even knowing it was a curse.

And thus, she hoisted up the flag of revenge—and chose to die alongside all of creation.

Alice raised her hand to resume her attack. However, she spoke in an unthinkably gentle voice.

“But still, thank you. I’ll remember what you told me until the very end.”

“I see. Well, if you’re going to accept everything about your beloved, then I guess we ain’t got no choice but to kill each other.”

“That’s right. And I’m sorry to say that it’s me who’ll be killing you.”

There was a tinge of loneliness in Alice’s voice, but as she spoke, she continued making her move. She snapped her fingers.

The White Knight did as instructed and brandished his lance.

As a show of resistance, Jeanne summoned up eddies of golden flower petals and forged them into the most powerful shield she could muster. The White Knight fired his shock wave. Even at a glance, Jeanne could tell that she didn’t have the strength to block it. But all of a sudden, something changed.

The White Knight’s shot went wide. Instead of hitting Jeanne, it went flying off into the distance. Jeanne squinted to try and figure out what had happened. When she realized the reason, she gasped.

At some point, someone had wound a chain around the White Knight’s arm.

Jeanne traced its silver length with her gaze. There on the other end, standing there like it was the most natural place in the world for her to be

was Jeanne’s beloved,

Izabella.

Jeanne thought she was dreaming. But no. It was real.

She had appeared like a prince out of a fairy tale, ready to show up when and wherever she was needed.

That was simply how fantastical the woman Jeanne loved was.

“What are you doing back here?! I thought I got your ass to safety!”

However, Jeanne shouted all the same. Izabella blinked. The situation before them was downright hopeless, yet for some reason, Izabella scratched her cheek sheepishly like she didn’t have a care in the world. She replied in an awkward, almost bashful tone. “Maybe, but…isn’t it a husband’s job to come running when her wife is in trouble?”

“What’re you on about, dumbass?! I’m not the wife; you’re the wife!” Jeanne cried at the top of her lungs.

She wondered what in the world was going on. Both of them were being idiots, but as Jeanne saw it, Izabella’s actions were far more idiotic than hers. She should have known perfectly well that coming back would mean her death. But at the same time, there was something else Jeanne came to realize.

No matter how many times she tried to push Izabella away, Izabella would just keep coming back. Why, she wouldn’t so much as give it a second thought. Her fair silver hair would stream behind her all the while, and the look in her blue and purple eyes would be one of bewilderment at the very prospect of staying away. But that all made perfect sense.

That was just the kind of woman Izabella Vicker was.

And that was precisely why Jeanne loved her so.

Tears welled up in Jeanne’s eyes, and she clamped them shut. Then she gave up. And as she did, she nervously extended her hand. Earlier, even though she knew how impossible it was given the circumstances, she had dreamed of something beautiful.

“Marriage!”

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

Now it was as though that dream were coming true,

like they were having their wedding right then and there.

Jeanne took her lover by the hand, and Izabella readily squeezed hers back. Golden flower petals decorated their surroundings like they would in a ceremonial hall. As she intertwined their fingers tight, Jeanne posed the question.

“My beloved lady, will you stay by my side, in sickness and in health, in joy and in sorrow, to love and to cherish—even if it means throwing your life away?”

“It would be my pleasure,” Izabella replied, beaming. She puffed herself up with pride, like there was no other answer worth giving. Jeanne gave a teary-eyed smile.

And with that, the two of them

began their Waltz.