Subaru's desperate stalling had already stretched to over ten minutes.
"Enough already! Learn your place and just die already, would you!?"
"Grghh!"
The kicks he landed carved through structures with a ghastly beauty, and buildings left without pillars crumbled without a shred of recourse.
Smoke billowed up, blanketing the surroundings and sealing off his vision. Listening to Regulus's irritated tongue-clicking, Subaru darted across a battlefield where his improvised traps had all been spent.
"There you go, skittering about again… Do you not have any interest in fighting head-on like a proper man? I don't care what kind of relationship you have with that tramp, but someone who dares call themselves a knight or whatever—shouldn't they do better!?"
"Say whatever the hell you want! Get it all out!"
"Wrong answer!"
Regulus spewed malice in a stream of droning complaints, and when Subaru tried to retort, the reply was a buckshot blast of sand that could rob him of his life.
A heartbeat after distancing himself from the sand grains laced with killing intent, the gap in the rubble where Subaru had been hiding moments ago was obliterated.
A graze meant a fatal wound. A direct hit meant death.
Up to this point, Subaru had been miraculously spared from Regulus's attacks. Since contact meant the end, he had no business counting this luck as a blessing.
"Focus! Focus! Focus—!"
Out of breath, wiping away sweat, every nerve devoted to evasion.
Face smudged with dust, Subaru spat out the mud-tasting saliva pooling in his mouth.
The parkour training was paying off.
Unlike the days he'd spent training his body aimlessly, the impact of a clear sense of purpose and drive for improvement on Subaru was enormous. The hours he'd spent training day after day in the forest near the new Roswaal mansion—training until he wanted to puke—had not been wasted.
"All I can do is barely, hah, keep a guy who moves like a total amateur off-balance…!"
Even so, this was one of the
If Pleiades made it safely out of the Witch Cult's clutches, they would have to throw him a proper celebration for this— "That's why…!"
"Keep stalling with time alone and you think someone like you can do something to me? Don't get delusions that you can fight me just because you managed to chip away a seed or two of the 'Greed' authority!"
Without a moment to breathe, Regulus's tantrum-fueled destruction expanded. He no longer hesitated at whatever damage he caused to take Subaru down.
Pleiades, renowned for its beautiful scenery, was steadily losing its form to the Witch Cult's worst atrocity.
The stone bridge spanning the waterways was shattered, shops adorned with delicate glasswork were crushed flat. While sensing a misplaced beauty in the glinting scatter of glass shards, Subaru trusted his right leg and sprinted through the gaps in the onslaught of devastation.
Ironically, the power emanating from his right leg was what kept him alive.
That right leg, being consumed by something pitch-black and unknowable—was Subaru's lifeline right now.
He cracked his whip, hooking its tip around the gutter of a building right beside him. Trusting the binding force, he kicked off the ground and ran along the wall, tearing through the cityscape—dodging past Regulus's side, widening his eyes so the murderous fiend could see, and stuck out his tongue in provocation.
"You insolent little brat!!"
The stone fragments flung from Regulus's swinging arm missed Subaru, who used the momentum of reeling in his whip to escape, and flew off wildly in the wrong direction.
He didn't think about attacking. He devoted himself entirely to running.
Those who had been destroyed by 'Greed' before had been destroyed because they were brave. If only they had been weak, fragile, and cringing cowards. Then surely they wouldn't have lost to this man.
So he would settle that grudge here. For that purpose— "Are you ready yet,
※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ "Does anyone… have any idea?"
Standing before the brides who had volunteered their help, Emilia bit her lip in surprise at the lack of progress.
The fifty-three brides exchanged glances at Emilia's question, then shook their heads helplessly.
"I'm sorry. I have no intention of lying about my desire to cooperate with you now that I've broken free of that man's control. But…"
The one who hung her head in frustration was the most prominent among the brides—a golden-haired woman who called herself Sylphy.
Among Regulus's current wives, Sylphy prefaced her words by saying she was the most familiar with the situation: "I can't believe that man would entrust something so important to us. He called us his wives, his brides, and all that… but he never once treated us the way those words imply."
"I can tell Regulus had enormous problems, but this doesn't make sense. Regulus's… 'Lion's Heart' has to have been entrusted to you."
Sylphy, crestfallen at having no leads, didn't deter Emilia. After all, Sylphy and the other brides had firmly resolved to escape Regulus's control of their own free will. She couldn't tolerate that resolve being halted from the very first step.
Moreover, Emilia trusted Subaru without a shred of doubt.
Subaru was amazing. He knew so many things Emilia didn't, and with his knowledge and exploits, he had overcome every dire situation. That was precisely why she didn't doubt his judgment that Regulus's authority was the 'Lion's Heart.' That didn't mean blind faith or passive dependence.
It wasn't a matter of throwing her hands up and going along with things because it was Subaru. Subaru could be wrong, and sometimes he would fail.
But Emilia's trust meant that she could correct those mistakes—or step back, or become someone who could help.
"Subaru thought the 'Lion's Heart' was definitely entrusted to the wives…"
Touching her chin in thought, Emilia mulled over the mystery of the 'Greed' authority as Subaru had described it.
— An authority that freezes an object's time, sealing all change.
At first she'd found it unbelievable, but there was far too much in Subaru's subsequent explanation that she could accept.
The only unclear point was whether it was actually executable in reality— "There is an incredibly powerful force at work there."
It was likely a transcendence of the absurd, akin to a Divine Protection.
Unfortunately, Emilia wasn't a holder of a Divine Protection, so she couldn't understand the unique sense of omnipotence that came with one.
However, she could sense something similar in Regulus. Perhaps their authority was what you'd get if you made a Divine Protection more grotesque and vile.
"Heart, heart…"
The worst-case scenario for Emilia was that among the brides, there was actually a genuine consort hidden who shared a bond with Regulus.
In that case, the true bride would try to conceal the heart she was safeguarding from Emilia, all for Regulus's victory.
"— — —"
Unaware of Emilia's troubled thoughts, the brides led by Sylphy exchanged words of their own, searching for any leads.
Watching them earnestly trade thoughts, Emilia observed them closely with her violet eyes.
She had ordered the spirits of light scattered throughout the surroundings to watch for any changes in the brides' bodies. The spirits of light weren't particularly perceptive to human changes, and she felt terrible about testing women who had willingly offered their cooperation.
But she was long past the point where she could let suspicions sit simply because she didn't want to suspect them.
"Hmm…"
The spirits of light delivered their answer.
She couldn't say she was certain, but there was no noticeable reaction from the brides. As far as Emilia could tell, there was no bride who was obviously feeding information to Regulus.
If that was the case, then the remaining possibility was— "Hm?"
Suddenly, she felt as though her hair was being tugged, and Emilia instinctively looked up.
Swimming through her field of vision was a pale blue spirit of light. A spirit that should have been attached to one of the brides was flickering as if desperately trying to convey something.
Following its trajectory, Emilia saw the spirit had gone to Sylphy. The golden-haired woman was still earnestly leading the chorus of the brides who had raised their voices of resistance against Regulus.
The spirit of light was floating up and down around her back, as though appealing about something.
"Hey, can I talk to you for a sec?"
At Emilia's call, Sylphy turned around with a puzzled expression. Emilia walked over close to her and stared intently at the spirit of light asserting its presence near Sylphy's chest.
"What is it?"
"Sorry about this."
The spirit of light hadn't materialized, so it was invisible to everyone but Emilia. Accordingly, only Emilia understood its desperate appeal.
That was why Sylphy's eyes went wide when Emilia suddenly thrust her hand toward her chest.
"Huh? Wh-wh-what?"
"Just a moment—stay still. I'm checking something right now."
"Checking… what, exactly…"
Sylphy's face flushed red, unable to hide her surprise.
To that, Emilia answered with a serious expression.
"Your heartbeat."
"—!"
"I'm a spirit user, you see. My contracted partner is resting right now, but I can talk to the spirits of light. I had them check everyone's bodies, and your heartbeat is the only one that's different."
"My… heartbeat?"
Sylphy held her breath.
She looked like she'd been told something incredible. Her shock was natural—she'd just finished hearing the full details of the 'Lion's Heart,' and now she was being told there was something abnormal with her heart.
And once it had come to this, there was only one explanation— "How terrible… Regulus merged his own heart with the heart of whichever person he designated as his bride…!"
※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ "By the way, you were pretty impressive acting all high and mighty with that lecture, but I have absolutely no idea where you got the hope that your little stalling act would actually bear fruit. I can't imagine what kind of brain could arrive at my authority, but if you did figure it out, then why on earth would you still choose to fight once you got there?"
Looking down at a blood-soaked Subaru, Regulus sneered with his cheeks pulled upward in triumph.
Subaru lay collapsed on the ground, slumped against the rubble of destroyed building materials, gasping in agony with half his face drenched in fresh blood.
"Ah… guh…"
"You ran around to your heart's content, but when it finally comes time to collapse, it's over in an instant. Well, yeah. That's how it should be. Given the gap between you and me, this is just the result settling where it should. Now I don't have to waste any more energy on something as absurd as all this."
Regulus approached the crumpled Subaru and crushed an offending stone under his heel. His authority was still intact—he made sure to show it.
"Don't you find it a bit presumptuous, honestly? There've been plenty of people before who were all fired up trying to defeat me or take me down. But every single one of them couldn't reach me. Desire more than your capacity allows, and that's the natural order of things. You understand, right?"
The Archbishop of Sin of 'Greed,' who preached contentment, declared his contempt for those who burned with excessive desire.
Desire breeds pointless conflict. Desire breeds infinite hunger. Desire breeds ultimate heartlessness.
That was precisely why contentment was noble.
To wish for austerity, to impose virtue upon oneself—that was the highest virtue.
"If you'd just been satisfied with what you had in front of you… but no, you want something beyond your station and it destroys you. Every last one of you, not a single exception, never learns a thing. You really are hopeless creatures, you know that?"
As if lamenting the state of the world, Regulus ran his fingers through his white hair and shook his head as though drunk on tragedy.
But the sorrow contained in his voice was genuine. Regulus at least sincerely mourned and grieved the stupidity of everyone other than himself and Subaru.
Without ever realizing it was the voice of a lonely omnipotent being, deluded by self-righteousness.
"B-before… dying… your power's…"
"Huh? Oh, the so-called 'final words before death'? How impressive you know such an antiquated expression. Is this what you mean—your accumulated useless knowledge finally reached me?"
Regulus laughed at Subaru, who clung to life by a thread yet still wished at least to confirm the answer about the authority. Now devoid of the ability to skitter about, all that remained was a pathetic creature to be crushed.
"Well, all right. Since you've come this far, I'll give you a tiny reward for your efforts. I'll tell you that everything you desperately did to buy time was completely pointless."
"Im… possible…"
"It's simple, really. The heart of mine that you and that girl are looking for—I did entrust it to the brides. — But neither the brides nor I have any awareness of which bride is carrying it. Rights are equal, love is evenly divided, and the burden borne is fair and square."
At Subaru's stunned silence, Regulus shrugged and added, "Isn't that how it should be?"
"When you take multiple wives, treating them all equally is simply the natural thing to do. It's because I can execute that principle—including all the fine details—that I'm allowed to exercise those rights. In other words, I'm staking my life to continually prove my love for them."
"You mean the brides don't know they're carrying the heart?"
"It's not complicated. — Nobody spends their days constantly conscious of their own heartbeat, do they?"
At Regulus's wide-split grin, Subaru understood.
He understood how Regulus hid his heart. The wickedness of the method.
Simple, effective, and above all—impossible to prevent.
"He hid his heart inside the bride's heart…!"
"A husband's assets are his wife's responsibility. But you see, I'm a content man. I don't possess any of the superfluous assets that worthless people like you carry around. So what I entrust to my wives is my very existence… my love for them, the very essence of our marital bond, isn't it?"
— Grotesque.
Consciously and deliberately villainous was Regulus's authority. He executed it without a shred of malice, without remorse, believing it to be the natural course of action.
Emilia had been sent to the church with several hypotheses about how the 'Lion's Heart' was hidden. But even Subaru hadn't covered this particular pattern.
Still, it wasn't as if there was no way to break it— "That's theoretically… but Emilia could never do it."
If what Regulus had smugly lectured about was truly the entirety of the 'Lion's Heart's' power, then there was a way to break it. If he could convey it to Emilia, she had the ability to execute it effortlessly.
The problem wasn't whether it was possible, but whether it was right.
— To choose which lives to sacrifice.
"Huh? Hey, you…"
Regulus made a bewildered face as Subaru, who had been lying in a heap and looking at him with hatred, stood up.
He'd been caught in the city's collapse and was on the verge of death until just moments ago, yet here he was, now standing and making a show of dusting off his knees. Reading Regulus's suspicion, Subaru raised his eyebrows as though suddenly remembering: "Playing dead… ah, no. Playing like I'm dying. A stone grazed my forehead, so I thought I'd try it."
He smeared blood on his face, acted a little pained—and this was the result.
Having successfully pulled one over on Regulus, Subaru aimed a grin at him.
"I was counting on it. That when you found a nearly dead enemy, you'd absolutely puff out your chest and start yapping like a pompous fool."
"—!!"
"Whoa!"
Regulus launched himself forward, his body charging straight ahead.
The speed was nimble—a step beyond the movements of someone who moved like a total amateur. This split second of acceleration, rare even for him, was enough to astonish Reinhard himself.
But that the mechanism behind it had been invisible was only true before his authority was revealed.
"Guhn!"
Subaru detonated the power he'd been storing in his right leg and launched his body to the left without hesitation. Regulus's aim—to blow Subaru away—was thwarted by the fatal flaw that he could 'only fly straight.' In essence, Regulus's momentary superhuman burst was an application of time stop applied to his own body. His authority separated his body's time from the world's, shielding it from all interference. Taken to its logical conclusion, that meant liberation from gravity, air resistance, and the laws of inertia.
The reason he didn't do it all the time was because there was some kind of restriction— "— you little—!"
"You're the one who should want to scream…! I have to somehow get to Emilia…"
Regulus's heart—the answer to where it was. He had to tell her.
Tell her, and then have her choose. That method— To save the city. To Emilia.
"Emilia…"
While facing the furious Regulus, Subaru looked toward the church where Emilia must have been.
Among the ruined cityscape, half-destroyed but still standing beyond the reach of Regulus's aftershocks, was the church.
— That location was engulfed in pale blue light the very next instant.
※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ The unification of the bride's heart and Regulus's heart.
The conclusion Emilia had arrived at—upon hearing it, all the brides were seized with agitation. Chief among them was Sylphy, whose panic was the greatest of all after Emilia had checked her heartbeat and made her realize she was now sharing Regulus's pulse.
"My… heart… with…"
When Emilia released her, Sylphy stumbled backward with a face pale as a sheet. The woman standing behind her supported her back with concern— "Don't touch me!"
The next instant, Sylphy flailed her arm free, her voice cracking.
Sylphy reached out toward the other brides as if to hold them back, then turned her gaze toward Emilia.
"Are you sure?"
"…The spirits of light say it's unnatural. And I felt something off about your heartbeat too. Overlapping, I can hear it."
"— — —"
Sylphy pressed her hand against her own chest, closing her eyes as if confirming the words Emilia had just spoken. At the speed, weight, and interval of that heartbeat, she swallowed hard, then let out a long breath.
"So that's how it is… How far does he intend to trample on people's hearts before he's satisfied… that man…!"
"Wait, what are you doing!?"
A terribly parched smile crossed Sylphy's face as she headed toward the back of the church. The church, half-destroyed by Reinhard's slash, had a massive scattering of stained glass fragments that had been set into its skylight.
Sylphy picked up a shard of glass and turned back.
"You can see his scheme, right? He pushes his own weakness onto others, then tries to force them to make a choice."
"Make a choice… You don't mean—"
"If I try to stop his heart, the only way is to stop my heart that he entrusted it to. In his words, something like 'even death can't separate a married couple,' I suppose?"
Fiddling with the glass shard, Sylphy said in a resigned tone. Emilia understood the meaning at once—and with that understanding, she grasped both Sylphy's resolve and Regulus's malice.
"Wait! Stop! There has to be something—there has to be a way…"
"Do you really think there's some convenient method like that? There's no way to stop his heartbeat without stopping mine when our hearts have become one… Besides—"
"Don't just give up on your own! If I allow that, then what was the point of… what was the point of leaving the forest…!"
Again, there would be sacrifice.
Once more, because of Emilia's powerlessness and ignorance, a sacrifice would be born right before her eyes. Just like everyone in the forest. Just like
"Taken out of here by that man as his bride… those days were agony."
Desperately, Emilia searched for another way.
In the meantime, Sylphy's heart settled, and she calmly steeled herself toward the ending that was meant to be.
"All I could do was avoid touching that man's sore spot, desperately. Turn a blind eye to whatever atrocity he committed, and try—try to protect the new brides brought in after… the girls in the same position as me. That's what I resolved to do, just as those before me did for me…"
The true reason why Sylphy had stood at the forefront as the brides' representative, always the first to step forward in anything, was now laid bare.
There had been someone before her, too. Someone who had stood in the front line to shield the women who had crossed Regulus's volatile temper and been taken from him. And that will had been passed to Sylphy, and now the current brides existed.
"Even if he dirtied our hearts, he never touched our bodies… so if both had been defiled, we never would have endured it. That's why, up until today, we endured his words and his voice and his actions, over and over and over… and yet!"
At that, Sylphy bit her lip and raised her head.
In her eyes were large tears, and rage so hot it could scorch those very tears.
"His hands had defiled my body too! I thought at least that much was being protected—it wasn't! We've been his slaves all along!"
Screaming through her tears, blood trailed down Sylphy's hand. The glass shard, gripped tightly, had split her palm. She grimaced in pain, yet her lips softened with a tender expression.
"That man would kill us if we even got a single scratch—since a scarred woman was unacceptable to him. …This wound is my freedom."
"— — —"
"It's not your fault. I'm grateful to you. For my revenge on all those days spent with that man—there is no better method than this, I'm certain."
Smiling at Emilia, Sylphy then looked at the other brides—her other halves, as it were.
And with the glass shard in her right hand and her left hand pressed against her chest— "Once I die, the heart will transfer to someone else. Of course it will. That man wouldn't favor only me. He wouldn't be so devoted to some incomprehensible fixation like that."
"…I'm sure that's right."
Someone—one of the brides—murmured.
As if agreeing with Sylphy, the bride who answered stepped forward from the group. The long-haired brunette picked up a glass shard that had fallen at Sylphy's feet.
"There have been times I thought about dying. Living like this, you can't even call it living. I'd rather go to the world after death, where my family is…"
"But the reason I couldn't do it was because I didn't want to die. Even if death freed me from the pain, there'd be nothing left to feel."
"But if I die… and this life can deal that man one blow… if dying wouldn't be meaningless…"
One after another, the brides stepped forward and picked up glass shards.
They looked at the razor-sharp tips as though their hopes lay there. Spurred by Emilia's words, the brides appeared to have found, as it were, a purpose for their lives and their hopes.
"Thank you. I'm grateful to you. — There is no bride other than the ones here. That much I can guarantee absolutely. So, I'm begging you."
"— — —"
"Please deliver it to him. Our anger—deliver it to him. — We can only ask this of you, the one who was sought out by that man yet still refused."
Sylphy's plea was woven in a gentle voice.
All the brides held stained glass—the shattered symbol of the church where marriages were consecrated—and chose their end.
Pointing the razor-sharp tips toward their own pale necks, they prepared to drive them in for self-destruction— "Wait."
That desperate act was halted by a single word from Emilia.
Emilia, who had been silent all this time. Her words carried weight—both in a spiritual sense and a physical one.
Ice hands reaching up from the ground restrained the brides' arms. Blocking the motion that would have driven the glass shards in, they prevented the women from taking their own lives.
At this, Sylphy's eyes flew open, and then her lips began to tremble.
"Please, understand! Your feelings—they make me happy. But there's no other way…"
Only through death could they be repaid.
Only through death could they deal a blow to that man—to Regulus.
That was the conclusion of Sylphy and the brides.
Their heart-stopping, sorrowful answer—Emilia understood it too. And she had thought, and thought, and thought about how to negate it.
So— "I'm sorry. That's not right."
"…Huh?"
"If it were Subaru, maybe he would have thought of something. …But I'm not very smart, and even after thinking really hard, I couldn't come up with anything… So…"
Surrounding Emilia, a pale blue radiance danced.
Having received mana, that shimmering light was the spirits of light in their visible state. A massive manifestation of spirits of light, filling the ruined building—it was a sight almost divine in its fantastical beauty, and the brides held their breath.
"I will stop your heartbeats. — Slitting your throats with something like that won't bring you any peace."
As Emilia raised her hand, the spirits of light shimmered in response, and blue snow fell inside the church.
The snow settled in a thin layer around the brides, touching their white skin and transforming into white crystals.
The gentlest and cruelest magic Emilia could perform.
"—I'm sorry. I have no other method."
"Don't apologize."
Understanding Emilia's intentions, Sylphy let out a breath.
The brides' hearts were one. They fixed their gaze on Emilia, who had steeled her resolve, and spoke in unison.
"Thank you."
"—"
And a pale blue aurora enveloped the church— ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ A pillar of ice, reaching skyward, froze the church solid.
The air let out a creaking wail, and even the sky turned white and died. How much sorrow was contained within that rising column of ice?
Only its creator could know.
"…Emilia."
A peerless landscape of ice, swirling with immense mana—that was none other than the scene Emilia had created.
The definitive defeat of the 'Lion's Heart'—to stop the heartbeat along with the life of the bride whose heart had been merged. Subaru had thought of this method too. No other method had occurred to him.
And he could not bring himself to execute it.
Subaru had steeled himself with the resolve that Emilia might not even be able to reach this point.
But one look at this scene told him the answer.
— Emilia had chosen. That was the answer.
"Now, now, that's a bit—"
Regulus, who had been looking in the same direction as Subaru, contorted his cheeks as though imagining the result of that ice pillar. He must have understood that his brides had been at the location of that ice pillar. And the meaning of that scene.
So— "You! Is this what you wanted?! Is this what humans do?! You cruelly snatch away the ones who are loved beyond measure! How… how utterly heartless must you be to pull something like this off!?"
Stamping his feet, Regulus screamed at the blood-soaked Subaru.
The cobblestones crumbled beneath his soles, and the ground warped so violently it was as if the entire city had tilted. Lunging forward with full force, Regulus pointed a finger at Subaru.
"Are you satisfied? Are you happy now?! Just to kill me alone, you took the lives of innocent wives and—rejoicing in it—what kind of humanity is—"
He hurled vile insults, pouring out his grief at having been robbed—when his body was blown away.
The cause was an ice lance fired from across the street, from a girl who had just emerged from the church entrance.
The lance of ice gathered fearsome momentum and rotation, striking Regulus's standing body one after another, sending him flying like a ragdoll. While he was airborne, more lances pursued him.
Without losing momentum, Regulus's body was driven into the waterway. The waterway froze with a tremendous sound, and a statue of ice was formed with Regulus inside.
"That… was a letter of severance from your wives."
Stepping onto the frost-covered street, silver hair dancing, Emilia returned to the battlefield.
She looked at the collapsed cityscape and at Subaru rushing toward her, and her violet eyes narrowed at his battered state.
"Subaru, your wound—"
"I'm fine! It's just a wide cut that bled a lot, that's all. More importantly, the church… the brides—"
"…Everyone wants to defeat Regulus. And—"
Lowering her gaze, Emilia briefly glanced toward the frozen church.
That reaction alone was enough to convey that the choice Emilia had made did not belong to her alone. And the weight of that choice—Subaru would have to bear it too.
"But, but, this should have broken the 'Lion's Heart's' effect. His invincible trick is out of tricks…"
"No. It doesn't seem that simple."
"Huh?"
The sacrifice born from that choice—what should have been the answer gained in return. Just as Subaru was about to argue this point, Emilia gave a faint shake of her head.
A split second after surprise registered at her reaction, the ice statue in the waterway behind them cracked.
The fissures spread rapidly, extending to the waterway's dammed water. The collapse linked the waterway and the street, and the current surged forward, flooding the ground beneath Subaru's feet.
"Truly laughable in its arrogance, unspeakably vulgar, dumbfounding in its incompetence, unbelievable in its shamelessness, hopeless in its inferiority—!"
The fiend descended, cutting through the rushing water, bathed in spray yet never wet.
Not a single stain on the white tuxedo. The white hair didn't so much as stir in the wind. Not a wound, not even a bead of sweat on that white face—the presence itself was a daydream, or rather, a daytime nightmare.
"So what now? What's your plan? What are you going to do about all this? You were so high and mighty, saying whatever you pleased—and it all ended in a colossal failure. All that's left is sacrifice! How do you intend to salvage this!?"
Even in his fury, the 'Lion's Heart's' power continued to function in Regulus.
There was not a single trace of damage inflicted by Emilia's ferocious assault.
"That can't be! The 'Lion's Heart's' authority—you blabbered about it yourself, so… there's no way you could pull off a bluff like that with the brain you've got!"
"I'm not going to listen to such outrageous things if you think I'm going to be a good sport about it. Let me remind you—injuring someone's heart without permission is the bare minimum of basic human decency! No one has the right to look down on anyone else, so how can you be so openly stupid like that? Is it just your heart that's defective, or is it your brain too?"
The words came out provocatively without intention, and Regulus tapped his white-haired head with a finger, looking down at Subaru with contempt.
"Probably that promiscuous tramp miscounted. You don't even remember the number of lives you took? That's the thinking of a killer through and through. Something's wrong with you."
"You're one to talk…"
"Don't change the subject. What I've done in the past has nothing to do with the fact that that woman is subhuman. Don't run from your crimes. Don't look away. Sitting on the sidelines while blaming the other party—are you not ashamed to call yourself human?"
Consumed by unreasonable, misplaced outrage, Regulus harangued those around him.
Without ever questioning his own twisted state of being,
How much contradiction did he need to pack into his own chain of statements before he was satisfied?
Conversations with Regulus were nerve-wracking. Facing an Archbishop of Sin made him question whether it was even possible to stay sane.
"But… damn. This is a miscalculation."
Even after crushing every candidate who could serve as a substitute for his heart, Regulus's invincibility remained.
In theory, it shouldn't have been wrong. Regulus wasn't clever enough to outwit Subaru through words and actions during their life-or-death provocation battle.
Regulus had no ability to deceive others or beguile them with words.
His capacity for empathy was completely absent. In his world, only he existed. Marriage was playacting. Speeches were generalities. Combat was amateurish. His way of being was pure evil—truly, a 'small king.' "Fifty-three people…"
Beside the shuddering Subaru, Emilia murmured suddenly.
Up to this point, she had shown no reaction whatsoever to Regulus's outrageous tirades, insults, and unbearable grievances. She had said only one word.
"Huh? What? What did you just say?"
"Fifty-three. That's the number of women you forced yourself onto. Miscount? Why would I ever do that? I don't miscount the number of lives."
"Oh? And? So? What exactly are you trying to say?"
Regulus dismissed Emilia's quiet correction with a patronizing air. He stuck a finger in his ear in a blatantly mocking gesture.
Even Subaru, the king of provocations himself, wanted to applaud just how infuriating that gesture was. But Emilia accepted it and turned back to face Subaru. And to the breathless Subaru, she shook her head.
"It's all right, Subaru. I already understand everything."
"Understand everything…"
"Besides, I'm really, really angry… so I'm not going to forgive you anymore."
Subaru watched, staggered.
With her soft features drained of all expression, voice lowered—Emilia, pretending to freeze out her emotions, was angrier than anything he had ever seen.
With cold flames rolling within her frozen gaze, Emilia touched her own chest.
And spoke: "Regulus's heart is right here—inside my chest, right now."