Behind them was a room packed with enormous flies.
To the side, a wall had been smashed through, and beyond it the Black Dragon lay crashed and unable to move.
And right before their eyes, there was a girl trampling Crusch underfoot and cackling with laughter.
Those sinister smiles, that mocking preamble—and above all, if one believed the name she had given, the person standing there could only be
—It was enough to drive one insane.
"Wh-what the hell is this…?"
"There's no point in thinking about it, is there? You garbage scraps stop spinning those extra little heads and just accept the reality in front of you! The beautiful young girl who was trembling in fear was actually the Witch Cult's Sin Archbishop all along!"
Capella danced before Subaru, sticking out her tongue and laughing crudely. Beneath her feet, Crusch lay with her eyes rolled back, blood spilling from her mouth at an alarming rate.
There were no obvious external wounds. But the damage was clearly life-threatening. With Garfiel—the one who could use healing magic—out of reach, this could easily turn into the worst-case scenario.
"Seriously, don't you people find yourselves weird? This is City Hall—the heart of the city's infrastructure. How could a little scrap of meat like her even be wandering around in a place like that? The sheer idiocy of living your life going 'Oh, she's in trouble, I have to help!' without a single shred of suspicion is what truly baffles me!"
"Shut up! I've got plenty I want to say and plenty I want to hear, but first get your foot off her!"
"Huh? Aren't you just overjoyed to get a look at my lovely feet, drooling all over the place? Or maybe you're obsessing over the female meat desperately licking the soles? She's got quite the sexy build, doesn't she? Can't contain yourself, can you? Kyahaha!"
"—! That person! I'm telling you she's someone you don't get to keep pinned under your foot!"
Capella ground her heel into Crusch's breastbone, savoring the creak of bone. At that atrocity and those mocking words, Subaru unleashed his fury and kicked off the ground.
He lowered his center of gravity and surged forward. Capella, who had been provoking him, clapped her hands in delight as though to say "just as I expected," but Subaru wasn't stupid enough to charge in blindly.
Even with her memories gone, Crusch was a warrior.
More than that—she was a warrior skilled enough that Wilhelm had permitted her to take part in this battle. And in the十几 seconds Subaru had looked away, she had been defeated without putting up any fight at all.
There was no doubt that the "Lust" Sin Archbishop's power far exceeded Subaru's own.
So what Subaru needed to prioritize here wasn't defeating the enemy—it was breaking out of the situation.
"———"
Retrieve Crusch, who was in mortal danger, and rush to rendezvous with Julius and the other allies.
Abandoning this place and extracting themselves was the top priority. He wanted to stop the broadcast, but it was clear this wasn't worth throwing his life away.
And the people who were supposed to be in City Hall—the ones he needed to save—were nowhere to be found on this floor.
The conclusion was simple: they didn't have the fighting strength to retake City Hall right now.
So Subaru didn't hesitate.
"Oh my~?"
"Shut—!"
At Capella's theatrically surprised voice, Subaru didn't lunge at her. Instead, he cracked his whip at the shelf mounted on the side wall. Inside it sat a metal figurine—some kind of human-shaped ornament. He couldn't tell what it was supposed to depict, but he snatched the arm-sized object with the tip of his whip, flicked his wrist with practiced ease, and hurled it straight at Capella.
A high-speed, vertically spinning metal projectile.
It had enough force to crack a wall, far more impact than a whip strike. Whether she blocked it or dodged it, Capella would have to move off Crusch—that was certain.
In that opening, he would reclaim her— "Hit her!"
"Sure thing~!"
"What!?"
To Subaru's battle cry, Capella responded with an utterly composed voice.
The next instant, there was the sound of something hard piercing through flesh and bone. Blood sprayed from Capella's head. The girl's forehead—struck directly with no defense—split open, peeling back hair and skin to reveal a ghastly wound as thick, viscous blood oozed down her cheek.
The face of that cute girl was half crushed and caved in, a truly wretched sight.
Her left eye was half destroyed, and seeing that lifeless gaze fixed on him with a hollow stare, Subaru's mind went blank from the sheer unexpectedness of it all.
In that one stupid instant of hesitation—the moment he created an opening against the enemy only to fluster himself—the Sin Archbishop was not about to let it pass.
"Why do you garbage scraps keep amusingly staying right in the palm of my hand, huh? That irredeemable stupidity is exactly what I love about you. Kyahaha!"
Into the gap of Subaru's frozen thoughts, Capella's mockery slipped through.
Before the petrified Subaru, the girl spun, and the next instant a black whirlwind slammed into him from the side and sent him flying.
"Guah—!"
It was like being slapped by a giant. His entire right side took the blow at once, and Subaru bounced off the floor, crashing through a desk before tumbling across the room. His body battered in a dozen places, vision swimming, he braced himself against a wall to barely get upright—and looked.
"What happened? Were you too stunned to even speak at my beauty?"
"…What… is that?"
"Hmm? Oh, this? So, what does it look like to you~?"
Before Subaru, who couldn't even find his voice from the pain, Capella shook her hips gleefully and danced.
As her short skirt swayed, something that should never have been there extended from beneath its hem—a thick, black dragon's tail.
At the same time, the realization struck that the thing that had just swept Subaru's body aside was that very tail, and the twisted, grotesque sight of a massive dragon's tail grafted onto a diminutive girl's body was hammered into his consciousness.
What is that. What is that. What. Is. That.
"Could it be… a dragon that takes human form?"
"Yes, congratulations on that stunning display of low-brain-capacity, poverty-of-imagination, absolutely unbearable idiocy! Even after I scattered so many generous hints, you still don't get it, scrap meat!"
"—!"
As Subaru muttered his theory of Capella's true identity, the girl's expression soured and she lashed her tail. The long appendage swung down from directly above, cracking the floor, and Subaru barely dodged with a sideways leap. But— "If you relax there, that ruins everything~"
"Gu—! Haah!?"
Where he'd rolled from the floor strike, Subaru was punched by a massive left arm. The tail waiting where he was deflected slapped him upward, slamming him into the ceiling, and as he fell, bird wings sharp as blades sliced into him and drove him into the ground.
Screaming from the searing pain of a backslash, Subaru rolled across the floor, coughing from the impact—and finally saw the true form of the terrible attacks that had assailed him.
A dragon's tail, a beast's enormous furred left arm. When Subaru was deflected, the dragon's tail struck him upward again, and the thing that sliced through him was a bird's wing studded with feathers sharp as blades. Every single one of them was part of the girl before him—her own body.
"You've figured out the answer by now, haven't you~?"
Aberration. There was no other word for it.
A human girl who sprouted a dragon's tail, extended a beast's arm, and spread a great bird's wings.
Confronted with that sight, what other words could come to mind? Nothing but the visceral revulsion of gazing upon a creature that should not exist in any natural form.
The only emotion one could feel toward the monster before them was revulsion— "Mutating… transforming…—"
"I am Capella Emerada Lugunica, Sin Archbishop of 'Lust.' All the love and adoration in this world exists so that I alone can claim it. I—the one most deserving of love—can embody the ultimate aesthetic of every possible value system, catering to anyone's most perverted desires. I'll even shapeshift into whatever kind of beautiful girl you like, all floppy and malleable! I'm a woman who gives her all, you know! Kyahahahaha!"
While rattling on about whatever she pleased, Capella's form shifted freely right before Subaru's eyes.
Her aberrant shape returned to that of a small girl, then in the next instant her limbs stretched into those of a voluptuous adult woman. Before you could blink, she became a girl with the simple charm of a village maiden, and the following instant she was a young child with an innocent face wearing a lewd smile.
"So? What kind of me do you like, huh~?"
"———"
Speechless. Words wouldn't come. He could only feel, with overwhelming clarity, that this was the absolute worst.
It was a blasphemy against values themselves. Though its ability was simple and straightforward, the "Lust" Sin Archbishop's Authority blasphemed, trampled upon, and forced its gaze upon every conceivable value system.
Looking at her now, the wound on her face from the figurine's blow had long since sealed—there wasn't even a trace left. That incredible regeneration might be her shapeshifting ability concealing the injury.
Either way, the riddle of how the Black Dragon had disguised itself as a girl was solved. At first he had suspected something like Petelgeuse's ability—to possess other people—but if that wasn't it— "—Huh?"
Then what were the flies in the broadcast room, and the Black Dragon that had been in this room until just now?
"You caught on, did you?"
"W-wait. Wait, wait, wait, wait. Hold on. Just wait."
Reading the shift in Subaru's expression as though peering into his mind, Capella let out a laugh.
Her form had shifted into that of a graceful woman with long flowing hair, her voice entirely different. In the midst of so many changes he could no longer tell who he was even talking to, Subaru shook his head.
He wanted to believe it was different.
But if he thought about it, the explanation fit everything together. And without it, nothing made sense.
Capella's "Lust" Authority—free to mutate and transform her own body at will.
If that power could also affect targets beyond her own body— "You've figured out what the flies and the lizard really were, even with your blood-flow-impaired brain, right?"
"Those were… those people were—"
"Mm-mm, come on, give me the answer. I'll listen. Kyah!"
Capella pressed a hand to her mouth and laughed arrogantly.
Unable to contain the deep loathing he felt for her behavior, Subaru spoke through chattering teeth.
"—You transformed the people who were in this building into those things."
"Correct! But you're way too late. No prize. No praise from me either. What purpose could garbage meat that stupid and ugly possibly serve? I just can't understand it!"
"That's MY line!!"
Capella confirmed her monstrous act with an utterly unrepentant expression.
Those were the remains of the people, crammed into the dim room, silent and beyond speech. The compound eyes that had glowed red, all turning to look at him at once. The wings they'd fluttered—wings that could no longer even fly—producing a buzzing that wouldn't leave his eardrums.
—Because they had been asking Subaru for help.
"I can't understand! Are you out of your mind!? Why… why would you do something like that!? How can you do it!? Turn people into flies… turn them into flies—what's the point!?"
"Disgusting, is it?"
"It makes my skin crawl! You… you people are…"
"You find it repulsive? So grotesque you can't stand it? That it?"
Words wouldn't come anymore.
Spitting through gritted teeth that felt ready to crack, Subaru glared at Capella with bloodshot eyes. If looks could kill, he genuinely believed he would.
Turning people into flies and toying with their lives. Worse than simply killing them. The absolute worst.
In the past few hours, Subaru had encountered four Sin Archbishops he had previously missed.
Sirius of "Wrath" manipulated others' emotions and forced her selfish love on them.
Regulus of "Greed" imposed his own value system and bulldozed through with self-righteousness.
Alphard of "Gluttony" stole people's "memories" and "names," trampling the paths of their lives.
And Capella of "Lust" was a monster that toyed with human dignity and values.
Every last one of them was irredeemable, accursed, insane.
"———"
As Subaru seethed with rage that felt ready to burst the blood vessels in his brain, Capella's expression went flat—and then, just when it seemed she had nothing left to say, she smiled.
Before Subaru's vision, stained crimson with fury, Capella's face— "Yes, it's disgusting and grotesque and repulsive. That's exactly it."
She bathed in Subaru's negative emotions head-on, beaming with more joy than was possible.
She clapped her hands and pointed toward the room full of flies.
"You saw those huge flies gathered there and felt instinctive revulsion. You thought they were grotesque. That's correct—anyone would. No matter who they are, you can't help but recoil from creatures that ugly. Yes, that's the right response."
"What… are you saying…"
"Things that anyone can see are ugly and disgusting. I turned that squishy garbage meat into pitiful, wretched insects. Nobody could love something like that. Obviously, right?"
"So what the hell are you trying to say!?"
"People can't live without loving someone. But if all that's around are creatures like that, you can't possibly love them—can you? So you've got no choice but to love something else. By process of elimination. Because no matter how you try, you can never love something filthy."
His mind went blank.
Tilting her head as though she'd just had a brilliant idea, the monster's logic was incomprehensible to him.
Listening to the dry clap of her applause, Subaru was consumed by the desperate need to flee from here immediately.
Right now, without a second's delay—he wanted to vanish from anywhere he could sense this monster's presence. He didn't want her in his field of vision. Didn't want to feel her against his skin. Didn't want to hear her voice. Didn't want to keep her in his memory. If this wasn't visceral revulsion, what else could you call it.
"Physically impossible to deal with"—that phrase was only truly applicable to someone like this.
An instinctively unbearable existence—this was what it meant to be so terrifying simply by existing.
"I, the compassionate and loving one, am also a woman of many loves. I've decided to claim all the love and adoration in this world for myself, but I never slack off on the effort required to be loved. To be loved, I become whatever version of you desires. To make you look at me, I strip your interest away from everything else. I don't care who you love along the way. As long as in the very end, you choose me. I won't skimp on the effort. I raise my own appeal higher and higher and higher and higher and higher and higher! And I push down every other piece of garbage meat's appeal lower and lower and lower and lower and lower and lower! So that everyone loves me—Capella—the most precious and beautiful being in this world."
"…Just kill me already."
"Why would I? I'm a universalist—I can't do something so barbaric as killing. Besides, no matter how stupid and hopeless a piece of garbage might be… as long as it's alive, there remains the possibility that it could love me. I have a strong need for approval. So I want as many people as possible, for as long as possible, as loudly as possible, to praise me. And if you can't do that—then, and only then, can you die! Go ahead and die! That concludes my gracious sermon."
——.
————.
———————.
"I understand."
"Oh, you do? In that case, line up words that praise me, melt yourself into a puddle of adoration, and become a lump of meat to my liking—"
"Die."
No thoughts came. No need to think.
The thing before him was an enemy. And the worst kind at that. He didn't need any more information.
He cracked his whip. The monster's expression faltered, and for the first time the foul creature lifted herself off Crusch's body. Subaru stepped in and secured Crusch.
He scooped her light body into his arms and leaped backward in one motion.
"See? That's exactly what you male meat do—dripping with desperation for female meat. Don't go denying it. Don't go acting all noble with pretty words. You like pretty things, don't you? You like cute things, don't you? You like things that are soft and feel good, don't you? Don't you go pretending otherwise!!"
"———!"
As Subaru leaped back, Capella pursued, spitting saliva and extending both arms.
Both arms transformed—one into a snake's head, the other into a lion's head—stretching their twisted necks as they pursued Subaru, their fangs bared, crawling across the grand hall's floor.
Right leg, bleeding again. No pain. Let it tear off for all he cared. Pouring every ounce of his being into protecting the warmth and weight of the person in his arms, Subaru used every bit of his mobility to evade Capella's pursuit.
"You care that much about the female meat you've paired with!? Then hold on to her for dear life and don't you dare let go! The body that tempts men! The eyes that beg for sympathy! The lips that coax out sweet nothings! That soft flesh that feels so good, so good, so good, so good! You're desperate because you can't help yourself, aren't you, garbage meat!? Die! Die! Die right now!"
"Stop putting words in my mouth, you bitch! I'm nothing like that with this person!"
"Shut up! The female meat smells like a female, and you male meat smell like a male—it's all the same thing! Haven't you ever thought about it? Haven't you had even one dirty thought—not even for one second, not even a fragment? If you think about it for even a second, then you're already in a male-female relationship! What's different!? What's different!? Tell me what's different, go ahead!!"
The snake and the lion rampaged through the room, reflecting Capella's growing excitement.
The sound of fangs clashing, the splintering of wooden desks, limbs that could be called neither arms nor necks nor torsos thrashing through the furnishings—sometimes striking Subaru's body.
Groaning in pain, caught in the destruction, Subaru kept shielding Crusch as he dodged. The exit was on Capella's side. Even if he spotted an opening to slip through, Capella's main body expanded and contracted, shifting wildly between woman, girl, and child, radiating an abnormality so repulsive it made even approaching her unthinkable.
"You want to stroke my hair, don't you? You want to touch my lips, don't you? You want to embrace my body, don't you? And then you wrap those filthy, dripping thoughts in pretty words and call it love. Don't go getting confused. Don't go mistaking love for something clean and beautiful. You're just decorating your base desires with whatever fine-sounding words you like and reveling in it!"
"Guh—! Oof!"
"Spit out those filthy desires you can't bear to say out loud! Don't dress them up with words like 'love'! Or are you going to say it? Are you actually going to say that stock excuse?—'I love her because I was drawn to her heart! Her nobility, her kindness, her compassion, her magnanimity, her eyes like the sky reflected, her way of life where she's willing to wound herself for someone else, her strength in never complaining, the weakness she shows only to me, how I can't leave her alone when she's trying so hard by herself, her voice that puts my heart at ease, her eyes full of love, her gaze that steals my heart, her lips that call me 'darling,' the warmth of her palm when we hold hands, the heartbeat that quickens every time we touch, her beautiful hair swaying in the wind, because I believe we were bound by fate, because she alone acknowledged me, because she was by my side during the hard times, because she taught me what truly matters, because we've been together the whole time, because I want to keep seeing the same things and feeling the same things going forward, because we made a promise, because she remembered our vow, because she found a version of me that's different from everyone else's, because she's the only one who knows the real me, because I can be myself only in front of her, because I've always wanted someone to understand that deep down I'm lonely, because she reminded me of what I felt the first time I fell in love, because she taught me what it means to love someone, because you wiped away my tears, because out of so many people you found me, because you held me so tightly I thought I'd break, because you scolded me when no one ever had, because you were the first to say something that wasn't just pleasantries, because you taught me so many things I didn't know, because you showed me sights I'd never seen, because you let me out of my birdcage, because you pulled me by the hand out of that suffocating world, because you were the only one on my side, because you're the only one who understands me, because being together feels like the most natural thing, because I can't live without you, because being with you is everything to me, because you love me and I love you, because you set my heart on fire, because when I'm with you everything is vivid and colorful, because I can't feel happiness without you, because I can't live alone anymore, because out of an entire life of lies this one feeling is real—'"
Chanting like a curse, Capella's expression died a little with every word.
But after reciting layer upon layer of love's motivations at length, Capella raised her face—a complex mask blending beauty, cuteness, and lewdness—and screamed.
"—Aren't they ALL just pretty words!?"
"———"
"Don't go spouting nothing but things that sound nice to the ear! What about what's on the inside, what about personality, 'we click,' 'we're compatible'—shut up with that drivel! It's the outside, the looks, the appearance that stimulates your meat and draws you to that meat! If you're saying you feel love in your heart, then take that sparkling person you used to gaze at with sparkling eyes, whispering sparkling sweet nothings to—and try loving them even when they've turned into a fly! Go on, try! Can you love them!? You can't, right!? They're disgusting, aren't they!? Grotesque, aren't they!? All you feel is revulsion, right!? And YOU'RE the one who just said exactly that!!"
Rampaging abuse, delusions, paranoid fantasies, jealousy, hatred, obsession, and self-preservation.
Spitting and snarling like a madwoman, Capella hysterically shrieked as she tore the room apart.
The great serpent's intimidation, the lion's roar, Capella's screaming—none of it could be heard anymore.
The noise became a storm, and sections of the room began to collapse. Swallowed by the shockwaves, Subaru couldn't even see how he was moving through the thickening haze of dust and debris.
Were his feet still on the ground? Was the leg that had been about to tear off still attached? The only thing he knew for certain was that the heartbeat of the woman in his arms was sending strength through his entire body.
But even that desperate struggle had reached its limit.
"You garbage meat—look at me!"
"Guaaaah!!"
Lion's head, bursting through the smoke, charging with ferocious momentum.
Jaws gaping wide, they clamped down on Subaru's right leg—the leg that had already lost half its flesh—ripping it clean from the thigh in a spray of blood.
Beyond the limits of
Naturally, he could no longer support his body.
He collapsed, and Crusch tumbled in front of him. He writhed, blood pouring out in ever greater quantities. This wasn't about major arteries being severed. Blood flowed as though a bucket had been overturned, and Subaru felt his life draining away with terrifying speed.
"Oh dear, you look like you're about to die. Seeing garbage meat writhe in agony is just too much for even my compassionate heart."
"…ah… aa…"
"The female meat will die too, I imagine. What a shame. She was to my taste… I'd have liked to test her. Whether she'd lose to the blood. Oh, that's right."
Capella crouched down and peered into Subaru's agonized face.
Then the monster smiled, gently reaching her hand toward the wound on his right leg.
"Let's see what kind of wretched lump of meat you'll become, shall we?"
"…o…"
So saying, Capella took her outstretched wrist and, with her other hand transformed into a blade-like shape, carved into it, drawing blood. Her blood dripped onto Subaru's right leg—dark, viscous blood mixing with fresh red, creating a perverse spectacle.
And then— "—!? O-aaahhhhh!?"
"My blood isn't like ordinary blood, you know. It's got dragon blood mixed in. If you lose to a blood curse, the consequences are pretty rough. Think you'll hold out longer than that female meat over there?"
Capella chuckled with amusement, but Subaru couldn't answer.
Half-dead, his senses dulled to the point where even pain had gone numb—his body, already on the verge of death, was now drenched in that blood. It seeped into his right leg's wound, invaded his body, ravaged and consumed him from within.
A foreign substance with willpower flooding in, overwriting his very existence with something entirely different—the sensation was a horror beyond pain, beyond suffering, in another dimension entirely, and it violated
He couldn't understand. He wasn't even allowed to die.
Which of them would go first, the monster had said. Was Crusch enduring this same agony right now? He wanted to die. He wanted to die, wanted to die. He didn't want to die.
"Kyahahaha! Well then, now that the intruders have been properly dealt with—time should be almost up, so I'll be going…"
Glancing alternately between the writhing Subaru and Crusch, Capella stood with satisfaction.
Her form shifted back to that of a girl, and as she flicked her hips she turned toward the broadcast room—then paused, noticing something off to the side.
There, beyond the collapsed wall that had been smashed outward when the Black Dragon was thrown out— "My my, impressive~"
"———!"
Crawling up from the floor below, the Black Dragon had found its nemesis. It let out a mighty roar, and from its gaping maw it unleashed black flames straight at Capella.
—In an instant, the uppermost floor of City Hall was engulfed in pitch-black fire.