——Slowly, methodically, she removed the shackles one by one, raising the heat within her own body.
There was a sensation of blood boiling, and every muscle in her slender frame clenched tight.
The body of a girl that, upon touch, would seem soft, ephemeral, and fragile—but the blood flowing within, the flesh and bone composing it, belonged to the most powerful race in the world.
And among that race, she was the second coming of what was called the supreme masterpiece—the "Oni God"— "That's Big Sister! Ah, how wonderful you are! How you shine! No matter what
"Don't spit when you talk. It's disgusting. And stop comparing
"Heh? And your reasoning behind that?"
"It's obvious, isn't it? —Because Ram has no need for a title greater than being Rem's older sister."
She spoke with a tone of exasperation, and as she turned her body, Ram's elbow strike pierced through the air.
A devastating martial technique that would tear skin if it grazed, shatter bone if it struck, and pierce through internal organs—it was unleashed without restraint, a barrage of blows utilizing every limb with fluid precision.
These were not techniques that relied on pure physical ability or skill alone.
Had they been purely technical in nature, Batenkaitos—who could reproduce any technique from any era by drawing on the "memories" of those he had devoured—would have been able to counter them.
But Ram's fighting style drew a clear and decisive line beyond that.
The elbow and knee strikes Ram launched as she closed in would freely accelerate and decelerate mid-motion. This was because Ram enveloped herself in wind magic—her specialty—intertwining truth and deception in the heat of battle.
She would accelerate or decelerate her speed with wind, warping Batenkaitos' perception at will. To top it off, Ram dispersed her presence in all directions using wind, slipping into her opponent's blind spots with agile footwork while delivering killing blows again and again.
"Hah! This is killing me!"
Batenkaitos dodged Ram's attacks by a hair's breadth and cheered with delight.
Blood streamed from his torn right cheek, and his long, unkempt dark-brown hair whipped about as the "Gluttony" Archbishop revelled in the contest of abilities between them.
"A spice with just the right kick! A trick with such stylish flair! An explosion of joy—absolutely dynamic! Big Sister, you're the perfect feast for our gourmet appetite!"
Batenkaitos cackled as they flew around the spiral staircase, constantly trading positions.
He clashed his twin short swords against Ram's staff, and when they pulled apart, drool dripped from his open mouth.
"Good, oh good, so good, good I say, good it is, isn't it good, it must be good, it's definitely good, that's exactly why it's good! Binge drinking! Binge eating!"
"More than anything, that smell of rage is delicious. An enemy who hates us, personally, this much... Just imagining savouring that on my tongue—what a feast that would be!?"
Batenkaitos clapped his hands and trembled with anticipation of a pleasure no one else could comprehend.
Watching this unfold before her, Ram let out a long breath and assessed the condition of her own body.
"Still far from my prime, but..."
She kept it off her face, but inwardly, Ram was astonished.
The saying "no one knows you better than yourself" is often a platitude of people who don't truly know themselves at all—but unlike such fools, Ram genuinely understood herself completely.
Having lost her oni horn and become the "Hornless," Ram's body was daily on the verge of being crushed by immense strain. That was why Ram had placed shackles upon her own consciousness.
Normally, she kept all shackles locked in place while working as a maid.
Occasionally, an emergency would arise where she needed to use magic to break through the situation. In those moments, she would remove one shackle and permit herself the bare minimum of magic use.
And if the situation still couldn't be contained, she would remove a second shackle, allowing her to operate at roughly twenty percent of Ram's true ability—albeit only for a brief engagement.
That was approximately the level she had fought at when she dueled Garfiel in the
She had been certain that was the absolute limit for the Hornless Ram—push any further, and her body would break under the strain and become useless.
Now, Ram was about to remove yet another shackle from those double-edged restraints.
In that instant, a rare hesitation distorted Ram's heart.
As stated before, Ram understood herself perfectly.
Even for her, the fact that she felt so little backlash from the battles up until now was something that truly hadn't happened since she was a child of fewer than ten years old.
Whenever the backlash from her battles rebounded, Ram had to brace for her head to split with pain, for nosebleeds and tears of blood to flow without end, and for her body to become immobile for a time.
But there was none—because it was all flowing into Subaru, her fellow captive of fate.
"...If this takes too long, Barusu will die."
If things had gone as discussed, Subaru should be running himself ragged right now dealing with the rampaging
With him were
Strangely, she found herself concerned about the movements of that optimistic, silver-haired girl. Before her "name" had been stolen, she must have been quite the handful to deal with.
Every single one of them had been utterly helpless without Ram.
Therefore— "Bear it as though your life depends on it, Barusu.—Because Rem will cry."
With those words cast out to someone who couldn't hear them, Ram removed the third shackle for the first time in ten years.
△▼△▼△▼△ The instant she did, the backlash of "Cor Leonis" bared its fangs at
"S—gh—"
It was a force that felt like vomiting blood—no, that actually made him vomit blood.
For a split second, he felt one of the faint lights he could sense within the tower swell enormously, and the very next instant, it came crashing down upon him.
"Subaru!"
(Subaru coughed up blood, and Beatrice, clinging to him from behind, steadied him as he nearly lost his posture.)
Unfortunately, the beast carrying Subaru and Beatrice at that moment was not the familiar
With little experience riding without the "Blessing of Wind Resistance," and no saddle to sit in or stirrups to brace against, one moment of inattention could send them flying.
The only reason they hadn't been thrown off yet was that Beatrice was using the Guilty Whip wound around the beast's upper body as reins, employing precise magic to manage their weight.
Subaru could not squander her tireless efforts.
"Ram's backlash must have arrived."
"Just as you guessed... Sorry, I'll manage to hold on..."
He gripped the whip tighter and responded to the understanding Beatrice.
The nausea rising up tasted and smelled of iron rust, and he had no idea which part of his body the strain had struck.
Whether it was his organs screaming or something inside him rupturing—the damage was something along those lines.
Either way, this was proof that Ram had gotten serious.
"If Ram takes care of one piece of the 'Gluttony' puzzle..."
He couldn't say that would make things instantly easier.
For one, he had no certainty that defeating a Gluttony Archbishop would return the stolen "names" and "memories." But it would definitely lighten his burden.
—And if that happened, Subaru could focus the burden he was shouldering on Meili alone.
"Hah... hah..."
Clinging to the Hungry Horse King's upper body, Meili was desperately issuing commands to her magical beasts.
Meili's fierce efforts were indispensable in their battle against the giant scorpion that charged at Subaru, swinging its massive pincers and tail stinger with wild abandon.
Compensating for their lack of fighting power with sheer numbers, Subaru and the others were brute-forcing a reprieve that shouldn't have existed.
That was why Subaru had shouted—completely serious, not joking or playing around—that they needed to pamper Meili like she was the most precious thing in the world.
Here and now, in the
Therefore, Subaru had already been shouldering the blessing's feedback that fell upon Meili for some time now.
"Feathered Earth Dragons! Courtesan Bears! Combined assault!"
With a high voice and an overhead view of the battlefield, Meili drove the magical beasts to their deaths.
She clapped her hands, snapped her fingers, or called out orders—and while her methods varied depending on the beast, the power of her blessing was running at full capacity for every command.
Subaru was all too aware of the enormous toll this took, his own brain throbbing and feeling swollen.
The benefits granted by Otto's "Blessing of Spirit Words" and Meili's "Blessing of Magical Manipulation" had more the air of amplifying innate human abilities than of anything truly magical.
If anything, they seemed like powers from the realm of psychic phenomena rather than magic.
That would explain why the feedback was so much heavier compared to other blessings—in the sense that the blessing's effect wasn't directed at one's surroundings or others, but exclusively at oneself.
"Blessings and authorities alike are both just parts of some incomprehensible system..."
The authorities wielded by the Sin Archbishops and the
Or the blessings granted at random to those born into this world.
Power always had its uses—Subaru acknowledged that this was something of a universal truth—but, "It's precisely because things like that exist..."
He couldn't stop thinking that they gave rise to tragedy.
The reason the Sin Archbishops and the Witches were feared—and the reason they could wield their outrageous power so freely—was undoubtedly due in large part to the overwhelming force of their authorities.
And the same went for blessings—without them, countless people could have lived without their fates being twisted.
For example, Meili herself was a victim of the blessing's negative side.
Because she was born with the power to communicate with magical beasts, her own parents had abandoned her.—He didn't know if that was actually true. But it was a convincing explanation. It made perfect sense.
At the very least, within Meili's heart, it was the truth.
That was precisely why— "I really am a walking double standard, huh..."
On one hand, he hated relying on authorities and blessings; on the other, he wouldn't hesitate to use them to the fullest when necessary. It was true that the weak had their options limited, but he didn't want to let that make him petty of heart.
He never wanted to forget that he was forcing his way down an unnatural path—and he wanted to be able to laugh about it.
"Big Brother! Are you concentrating!? If you and Beatrice-chan go down, that's it for everything, you know!?"
"I know.—Hey, Meili. When this is all over, how about you become one of us?"
"You—!! You're saying that while you should be focusing!!"
Meili screamed back at Subaru even as he endured the weight in his head.
Neither of them had any room to spare. If their concentration slipped, they'd be done for in an instant.
But even so— "After going through this much suffering, it'd be a bad deal if I didn't believe a good tomorrow was waiting for me."
Thus thought Natsuki Subaru, coughing up blood.
△▼△▼△▼△ Continuing the battle on the sands, Meili murmured to herself, "I've lost my mind."
Of course, there were plenty of candidates for who had lost their mind.
Shaula, who had transformed into a giant scorpion before her very eyes; the energetic, silver-haired half-elf; Ram and Julius fighting all manner of enemies inside the watchtower; and Subaru and Beatrice fighting alongside her—especially them.
But who had surely lost their mind the most was— "I wonder what's wrong with me."
Even Meili herself didn't understand how she'd ended up like this.
She believed it had all started the moment she tagged along on Subaru and the others' journey through the
She had gone along with the flow, responded to every request, and obediently carried out whatever was asked of her—without ever caring whether it was right or wrong.
That had been Meili's way of dealing with the world, and she had intended to do the same here.
And yet— "Because of things like the 'Book of the Dead'—that's why."
When she learned she could relive the thoughts of the dead, Meili's curiosity got the better of her.
She had been forced to unseal the feelings toward Elsa Granhillert that had been smouldering within her all this time—and as a result, she had committed the most un-Meili-like folly of her entire life.
To make matters worse, Subaru had caught her in the act and even lectured her with that self-righteous tone of his.
Strangely, she couldn't muster the will to scoff at his appeal.
Somehow, she'd been cornered into promising further cooperation.
Subaru had even told her he'd always walk ahead for her sake—though she figured he was the type to regret making such a rash promise.
In the sense of being easily swept along, Meili had to admit there were times she was guilty of that too.
But the difference between Meili and Subaru was that his words weren't just lip service.
When Subaru said he'd do something, he'd actually do it—and Beatrice, who had been present at that moment, would make sure he kept his word too.
That made Meili feel guilty about freeloading off them, and she felt inclined to help in some way—but she hadn't heard anything about the situation up to this point.
Even now, the flock of Feathered Earth Dragons that lunged forward in response to Meili's gestures was swept away in an instant by the giant scorpion's tail stinger.
The timid Feathered Earth Dragons would never naturally attack an enemy far more powerful than themselves—but even Meili, who could issue commands that overrode their instincts, could not make them any stronger.
"Ah! They got killed!"
The raging giant scorpion swung its enormous pincers, its violence cutting down magical beast after magical beast.
Torn open, crushed, and pierced, the blood of the fallen beasts soaked into the parched sand, transforming the once-yellow sand sea into something dark red.
Clenching her teeth at the sight, Meili quickly scanned her surroundings—searching the skies, the sands, and even beneath them for traces of magical beasts, taming whatever she could reach.
She couldn't be picky. Right now, what she needed was sheer numbers—an inexhaustible supply of pawns.
"Ugh, ugh, ugh, ugh! I'm definitely going to make Big Brother grant me a favour after this!"
Without even a moment to wipe the sweat from her forehead, Meili hurled resentment toward Subaru, who was maintaining a careful distance while keeping the giant scorpion in check.
The Hungry Horse King's back was no place for a comfortable ride, and Meili was in the same situation—though in her case, she had stabbed a knife through her cloak into the beast's back, forcibly anchoring herself in place.
It was a beast under her control. It accepted even this level of abuse without complaint.
The bigger problem was not the beast, but Meili herself, placed in this situation.
After all, this kind of last-minute battle wasn't Meili's way of doing things at all.
Meili's fighting style depended entirely on advance preparation—she would set up her control over the surrounding magical beasts, deploy them on the battlefield, and then watch the full assault unfold from a position of safety.
That was the true forte of Meili Portroute, the "Beast Master."
Of course, directly commanding from the battlefield did improve the precision of the beasts' offense and defense—but it wasn't something worth endangering herself for. It was precisely because she had misjudged that trade-off that Meili had lost the battle against Subaru and the others, and ended up as their prisoner.
"Elsa..."
Her death was partly the result of those accumulated mistakes.
Of course, Elsa would never have wanted Meili to blame herself—in fact, she might not have cared at all about her own death. And that was exactly what made Meili so frustrated.
Just as she couldn't understand Elsa's feelings, she couldn't fully understand her own either.
For that matter, fighting a delaying action against a giant scorpion, buying time at the cost of magical beasts' lives—Meili had never done anything like this before.
Meili Portroute, however young, had been an assassin.
Taking lives by someone else's command, instruction, or commission—that had been her livelihood.
And that was why this was a first.
—Having to fight in order to save someone's life, to protect them.
"This isn't my way of doing things, you know!"
Subaru's earlier words—almost like a passing remark—irritated her to no end.
"How about you become one of us?"—the nerve of him to say that to Meili.
As if he had no idea that there were people who despised him—truly infuriating.
Even if Garfiel was the direct enemy, Subaru had been the one who orchestrated that situation. And here in the Pleiades Watchtower, it seemed he was doing exactly the same—shaping events to his will.
Even as she thought of Subaru's words and actions in a negative light, Meili realized she was following his instructions all the same—moving as a piece on the board, just like everyone else.
If this was a situation shaped by Subaru's deep cunning and foresight, she might have found it more acceptable.
But no matter how you looked at it, Subaru didn't have that kind of capacity. All Subaru had was desperation, overbearing expectations, and a mad trust that bordered on entrusting his very life— "Somehow, I feel like I've become a complete fool too."
Saying that, Meili pulled up a beast she had captured from underground and sent it after the giant scorpion.
Splitting through the blood-red sand sea, a massive Sand Worm burst from underground, its enormous body—over ten meters long—undulating as it crashed spectacularly toward the giant scorpion.
If it could crush and bury the scorpion, it would be a major victory—but things wouldn't go that smoothly.
White light erupted, and the Sand Worm's thick trunk was obliterated in an instant.
As the bisected Sand Worm fell, shrieking and spewing body fluids, the tail stinger's follow-up attacks shattered it into even smaller pieces.
But that was merely a diversion of flesh and blood, purchased with the Sand Worm's life.
The real attack was the three Hungry Horse Kings emerging from the underground hole the Sand Worm had burst from.
With roars that sounded like wailing infants, the burning centaur-like beasts charged straight into the giant scorpion.
The Augria Sand Dunes were home to all manner of magical beasts, but the Hungry Horse King was still unmatched in terms of individual destructive power.
Using the numerous but non-lethal Feathered Earth Dragons, the endurance-lacking Courtesan Bears, and the Sand Worm—which sought to crush everything with its massive body—as cover, Meili had been saving her real trump cards.
Three Hungry Horse Kings, drawn by the aura of this battle and gathered of their own accord.
Their combat power was inferior to the giant scorpion's, but this was the beast the enemy was most wary of—and that was proof enough that the scorpion recognized their firepower as a threat.
"I really am in top form, aren't I?"
The burden of simultaneously controlling the one she was riding herself, the one carrying Subaru and Beatrice, and the three Hungry Horse Kings prepared for this assault should have been enormous.
But strangely, Meili felt none of that backlash right now.
It was possible the thrill of battle was the reason, and if so, she was content to let herself ride that wave.
She wasn't planning to finish it.
But if she could deal even a little damage, it would make Subaru's goal easier to achieve.
—In a way, this may have been the third time in her life that Meili, the girl who had always been swept along by the current, had genuinely wished to do something of her own volition.
The first was when she had wandered the watchtower at night, seeking salvation from the Book of the Dead.
The second was when, backed into a corner, she had chased after Subaru's back as he stood on the spiral staircase.
And the third was now—seeking to accomplish more than she had been asked for, in order to buy time.
"Meili!!"
The instant the three Hungry Horse Kings closed in on the giant scorpion, Subaru's scream called out to Meili—blood streaming from the corner of his mouth.
It held neither triumph, nor joy, nor amazement. Meili couldn't fathom it.
She was doing everything right—so what could he possibly have to be angry about?
But— "Huh?"
The three Hungry Horse Kings leveled their spears of flame and plunged toward the giant scorpion.
The plan had been that no matter how skilfully the scorpion used its pincers and tail stinger, it couldn't defend against all three at once—but that calculation crumbled when she saw the change that came over the giant scorpion.
It was as though it had been scorched by flame, or as though it had drunk blood like the sand.
The outer shell, which had gleamed dully like blackened steel, shifted colour as though awakening. A beat later, the pitch-black carapace had transformed into a bloodlike crimson.
Among certain species of magical beasts, there existed a phenomenon known as the "Attack Colour."
It was a transformation that distinctly changed the type of behaviour, making the beast far more ferocious and aggressive.
As a visible indicator of this change, the beast's appearance would often transform—the Hungry Horse King's flames swelling, or the
And this applied to the giant scorpion—or rather, the "Red Scorpion."
More aggressively, more destructively, more annihilatingly— "Ah..."
White light exploded in every direction, and the three charging Hungry Horse Kings were blown to nothing.
At the same time, the aftermath of the scattered white light raged across the sand sea like a scythe.
And— Swallowed by the erupting torrent of light, Meili's small body was sent hurtling through the air amid a spray of blood.
△▼△▼△▼△ —The sensation of boiling blood and the overflow of exhilaration. She had hated it since childhood.
That all-powerful feeling, as though she could command everything in this world.
If she had spent more time drunk on that illusion, no matter how strong her mental fortitude was, time would surely have led her astray.
She was aware of her own excellence. But she did not overestimate it.
She made mistakes. All she had was the will to avoid them and the attitude to correct them when she did.
The reason she could hold such an attitude was because she had never become intoxicated by that feeling of omnipotence.
It was because she hadn't let herself be misled by those around her into thinking she was something wonderful, and hadn't had to submit to those who venerated archaic customs and outdated mysticism.
And what had saved her from being crushed by those external forces?
She knew it must have been because of some missing piece of herself that she couldn't remember.
Because— "Ram isn't just cute. She's also brilliant."
Leaving those self-praising words behind, Ram's charge shattered the steps of the spiral staircase.
In that instant, the peach-haired oni wreathed in wind swung her arm and smashed dead-on through the opponent's raised arm. Wrist, elbow, and then shoulder—in a single, fluid motion, she twisted and snapped it.
"Gah—"
The scream couldn't arrive in time.
She drove her fist into the side of his face just as he was about to shriek, and Ram's white fingers became a shotgun blast.
Pounded by countless blows across his entire body, Batenkaitos vomited blood and went flying. Ram gave chase, riding the wind generated beneath her feet as she leapt high into the air.
"Hehe!"
As if to intercept Ram, Batenkaitos launched himself into the air, swinging both legs.
Immediately after, a spatial distortion grazed Ram's shoulder, cutting shallowly through her clothes and skin.—A parting gift of invisible blades in the air, a petty trap born of wind magic.
"Is this all—"
"You're going to blow them away with wind? No good, no good, useless, useless! Because those are fixed in space! No matter how much of a powerhouse you are, Big Sister, you can't scatter them! Too bad!"
Anticipating her intention, Batenkaitos grinned a blood-red smile and kicked the air.
He wasn't literally kicking empty air—it was an aerial walk that used the blades that had cut Ram's shoulder as footholds, an elaborate trick where only he knew the positions of his platforms, letting him fly freely through the tower's grand spiral staircase.
But— "Clairvoyance."
Even if she couldn't perceive them directly, as long as she could overlap her consciousness with the vision of the person who had set them, a slight shift in awareness would reveal their location.
As the "Gluttony" Archbishop tried to escape upward using his traps as footholds, Ram overlapped her vision with his to see through the traps, and used them as footholds herself to close in on him.
"Hah! Ahahahaha! Big Sister, is that for real? You're serious!?"
"That's quite the Barusu-like way of speaking.—It saves me the trouble of hesitating to smack you."
Before Batenkaitos could rise further, Ram sprang into the air ahead of him, looking down at that loathsome face.
And then, without mercy, she drove the sole of her boot into his face—that face with its mouth full of sharp teeth.
"Gu—"
"Now then—while you're falling, I wonder how many times you'll get to taste the sole of Ram's boot."
His nose crushed, Batenkaitos' small body flipped through the air.
The momentum of his ascent killed, the "Gluttony" Archbishop was now driven straight downward by the force of Ram's kick.
Ram gave chase—raising both hands to the sky, generating wind from her palms to accelerate her descent, and continuing to smash second, then third, then fourth kicks into Batenkaitos' face as he fell.
Without mercy, Ram's heel shattered his nose, his front teeth, his jaw, and his forehead with each successive blow.
His smug grin and the mouth that kept calling her "Big Sister" were utterly disgusting.
She ruined both of them, and the descent continued.
For the record— "If you get hit by your own traps, that's not Ram's fault. You brought it on yourself."
"Ggh! Gya! Ngyiiiii!"
As he was kicked downward, the invisible blades he had planted in midair tore through Batenkaitos' body.
Blood sprayed, and some of the wounds cut deep into the flesh, but Ram didn't spare them a single glance.
Ram had no taste for deliberately going out of her way to inflict suffering on her enemies.
However, that only applied when there was something sympathetic about the opponent. When the enemy was a hated foe, she didn't hesitate to make them squeal like pigs.
"How about it? Do you regret it?"
Skilfully braking herself in midair, Ram stood with one foot on his face and the other on his chest as she posed the question.
His face a bloody mess, Batenkaitos didn't answer. Instead, he tried to raise both short swords.
In that instant, Ram's twin hand strikes swiftly hammered both his shoulders, forcibly dislocating them.
"Auugh—"
"How about it? Do you regret it?"
No matter how many techniques he possessed, with dislocated shoulders, he couldn't swing his arms.
Looking down at his wide-eyed, astonished face, Ram repeated the same question.
She searched the eyes that looked up at her, trying to find the birth of fear within them.
Carving it in was the goal—fear, pain, the defeat of knowing one must not resist. Not for the sake of revenge—that trivial motive didn't apply.
"Rem's—"
It was to get her back.
And not just Rem—for the many other victims who had suffered at the hands of "Gluttony." For all those whose "names" and "memories" had been stolen, whose shared histories had been usurped.
If killing were all that was needed, Ram could do it right now while standing here.
With the same effort it took to crush his face, she could wrap wind blades around the sole of her foot and take his head. No matter how notoriously hard to kill a Witch Cultist might be, once head and body were separated, death was a proven certainty.
As had been proven in the process of exacting retribution against those who had burned down the oni village, as they had burned.
She knew that, in the end, the
That was why she asked—not to take his life first, but to destroy his heart.
"How about it? Do you regret it?"
"Eclipse!"
Hearing the third question, even through the colour of blood, a faint trace of fear began to seep in.
But it vanished before Ram's eyes in the literal blink of an eye.
It wasn't the kind of disappearance that could be explained by high-speed movement.
The physical sensation of the face beneath her sole vanished. But she quickly figured out where Batenkaitos had gone.
"Clairvoyance."
As long as she had locked onto the opponent's field of vision, no one could escape from Ram.
Tracing the visible field of vision, she pinpointed the opponent's location on the spiral staircase. Wrapping herself in wind and pursuing, she found the figure of a bald old man wearing what looked like a monk's robe.
Anyone but Ram might have been confused by the change in appearance.
But Ram, through the shared vision, was certain that no matter what form the opponent took, it was still Batenkaitos.
"I'd heard that shapeshifting was one of Sloth's tricks, but what other little gimmicks do you have?"
"A-Ah... damn it! I told you I never intended to use it... No, I really wasn't supposed to have to..."
"? What are you talking about?"
When Ram caught up on the spiral staircase, the old man—Batenkaitos—was kneeling there, groaning in pain.
Ram furrowed her brow at his seemingly genuine distress, but she immediately cast aside the need for answers.
What mattered was that he was still breathing and his spirit hadn't been broken yet.
And— "I can't take too long."
A murmur meant only for herself—but it had already been over a minute since Ram had removed the third major shackle. The strain on her was minor, but the bulk of it was flowing to Subaru.
She had told Subaru to make fine adjustments, but just as she'd expected, he had gone and taken on the entirety of her burden without permission. Always putting on airs, that one.
He should save that for his beloved and for Rem only.
"I don't understand the situation, but have you decided to accept our demand? Return everything you've eaten as 'Gluttony' up to now. And if you do—"
"...And if I do, what then? You'll let us go?"
"No. If you do, I'll kill you immediately. Fair deal, isn't it? I'll grant you a single, merciful death—a gift for someone who deserves ten thousand of them."
"Fuha—"
Batenkaitos, whose very self had aged into the old man, let out a cackle to match.
Observing his behaviour, Ram deduced that the transformation of appearance was likely a necessary process for utilizing this person's abilities at full capacity.
The technique he had used earlier to vanish completely before Ram's eyes was something that could only be described as short-range spatial teleportation.
The bald old man that Batenkaitos had transformed into must have been the one who possessed that ability.
"But it's strange. If you had such a trump card, you could have used it much sooner. So why did you hold it back?"
"...Is there some reason you didn't want to use it? Something to do with your vessel?"
"My, my... I truly have never encountered such a terrifying young woman before. ...No, I haven't. Really, Big Sister is scary, you know."
As the old man's form slowly reverted to Batenkaitos' small stature in response to Ram's deductions, it served as both confirmation of her reasoning and proof that the transformation didn't erase the injuries it had sustained. Batenkaitos was covered in blood, and his face was a ruin.
"Your shoulders?"
"I slammed them against the wall and popped them back in. Doesn't always work the first time, you know... Ouch, ah, that hurts."
To test his restored mobility, Batenkaitos swung his reattached arms in wide circles. Seeing this, Ram regretted that she should have severed his arms from the shoulders rather than merely dislocating them.
Or perhaps, had she crushed his extremities, she could have crushed those ridiculous tricks along with them.
"This and that—everything you do, all of it, is one step ahead... You're amazing, Big Sister. Could it be that you have some kind of authority like Big Brother's?"
"How insulting. Ram's abilities are simply superior insight. Don't lump them together with Barusu's nonsensical intuition. It's distasteful. Go die."
"Ahahaha, so harsh! But yeah, yeah, I guess that's how it is."
Slumped languidly, his split tongue lolling from his broken-toothed mouth, Batenkaitos wore a bloody smile. Ram's eyes widened at the eerie gesture, and tension flooded her shoulders.
If he made one wrong move—no, "Eat this before you do anything."
Before any strange movement could begin, Ram chose to blast his limbs away with blades of wind.
There were ways to stop the bleeding. There was no way to stop the pain, but as long as he didn't die, the interrogation could continue. Having made that judgment, she unleashed wind blades without a trace of restraint.
But— "The bet is ours to win!!"
Bathed in wind blades, a portly, bearded man was launched backward. His skin was so thick that the wind blades—which should have been able to sever not just limbs but even his thick torso—barely left red marks before bouncing off.
"Big Sister, you might have the wrong idea about something.—I'll have you know, you're not the only one who's been observing the enemy, you know?"
That voice was directed at Ram, who was about to advance to prevent the giant man's escape.
Immediately after, a planted blade grazed Ram's neck, slowing her advance by half a step. Into that half-step opening, Batenkaitos wedged himself.
"From old-man me to little-old-me—here's our one big hit!!"
The old man's form vanished in the time it took to blink, and the presence that materialized behind her was even more intimidating. Without a moment to turn, a devastating fist buried itself in Ram's side, sending her slender body flying.
From the air, she saw that the one who had punched her away was a man with a powerful, rugged build—a seamless combination that switched between three forms in an instant, fully exploiting the unique traits of each— "Even so, to think a technique shown once would still work—"
"I don't think so. I don't. I don't, I say. I don't, of course. I don't think so, that's why. That's exactly why. That's why I can say I don't!"
Batenkaitos' figure shifted back to the old man once more, and with his hand he covered one of his own eyes.
A chill ran through Ram at the gesture. She stretched her long leg, reflexively kicked off a wall, and tried to position herself to launch at him.
But she wasn't fast enough.
"We know this.—Rem's older sister cannot keep fighting like that without tricks."
It was not Ram's movement, but Rem's knowledge, that had drawn out that answer.
Seeing Ram's movements surpass the limits of the "Hornless," Batenkaitos had confirmed his theory—and the moment Ram returned to the staircase steps, he saw his malicious intent through to completion.
In other words— "Big Sister, it's not like we actually wanted to have a contest of strength with you, you know."
With that, his crafty grin dissolved into space as though melting away.
Short-range spatial distortion teleportation—used in sequence, it made escape from the battlefield easy. He hadn't expected they would stand and fight to the death fairly, anyway.
"You decided to flee quickly. No, more than that—"
If he knew about Ram's "Clairvoyance," he shouldn't have thought simple escape would work.
He had taken distance because he had realized the time limit imposed on Ram. And frustratingly, Ram had lost not an insignificant amount of time.
The burden on Subaru grew with every passing second.
She needed to find where Batenkaitos had fled inside the tower—quickly.
Just as she thought this, realization struck.
That Sin Archbishop, a being composed entirely of malice, would not have fled inside the tower merely to escape.
He knew all too well the method that would inflict the maximum amount of suffering on Ram.
And that was— "Rem."
Finally, the evil vision he had captured was shared with Ram's own.
There, she saw the tail of a black ground dragon running with the "Sleeping Princess" upon its back.