The crimson flames rising from both her arms lent Sirius's visage an almost demonic appearance.
It was the bandages that made her seem so — but the true cause was the eyes that had been overtaken by an extraordinary fury.
Those pale crimson eyes, normally so clear they seemed to draw you in, now burned with the same searing heat as the inferno consuming her arms, glaring down at Subaru and the rest with nothing but hatred.
No — that wasn't quite right. After all, "You stink. You stink, you stink, you stink, you stink, you stink, you stink, you stink, you stink, you filthy harlot...!"
In Sirius's eyes, filled with curses, Subaru didn't register in the slightest.
The ones Sirius was trying to incinerate with her unwavering gaze were none other than the two people standing before Subaru —
"What the hell is with her? She's completely different from before..."
Subaru couldn't hide his agitation at the sight of Sirius's fury.
This was the third time within a short span that Subaru had faced Sirius — if you could even call it that — in a state of relative normalcy. In those encounters, Sirius, while hardly what anyone would call a rational person, had never been someone driven entirely by passion, stripped of all reason.
She had been a broken person, yes — one who pushed her own deranged convictions on others, but did so rationally.
And now look at her.
She had clearly lost all composure, consumed by rage. Was this not the very image befitting one who called herself the Archbishop of "Wrath"?
"Maggots and flies — I burn them and they keep coming! What grudge do you have against me, huh!? You're telling me I don't even have the freedom to grieve and mourn!?"
"...I don't understand what you're saying."
"Hah!?"
Spitting venom and hurling nothing but accusations, Sirius received a response from Emilia, who did not shrink back. Sirius's reply was just as fierce, but Emilia did not flinch.
She pointed the tip of the ice sword in her hand toward the crowd assembled behind Sirius, "If you're angry at me, I'll listen. I was the one who attacked first, so it's only natural you'd be upset. But the people around us have nothing to do with this. Let them go."
"Don't talk down to me! If you want me to show mercy, prove it with your attitude!! It's natural to be angry? Then apologize! Apologize and beg forgiveness and grovel on the ground and weep and plead for mercy, and only then will I shove fire up your ass and burn your insides to a crisp!"
"Burning my stomach would be troublesome. —So, I'll make this easier to talk about."
At the sound of Emilia's voice dropping, the raging Sirius tilted her head.
In the next instant, Emilia leaned her upper body slightly forward and launched her slender frame ahead. Her pale arm swung the ice sword as though it weighed nothing at all.
The sharp tip caught the light, glinting as it was launched toward Sirius's shoulder.
"Emilia-tan!?"
"—Tch!"
Subaru's cry of shock and Sirius's tongue-click overlapped.
Facing the oncoming sword, Sirius instinctively raised her left arm, attempting to counter Emilia's ice blade with the inferno blazing there. However, "You half-demon piece of shit!"
"Don't keep saying that. It makes me sound bad."
Emilia's ice sword did not melt, even as it was drenched in flames hot enough to evaporate the spit she hurled.
The pale-blue blade held its own against the fire, striking directly at Sirius's flame-wrapped left arm — though what was there was a chain coiled tightly around it.
A shrill screech of metal rang out as the ice sword and the flaming arm collided, scattering glimmers of mana. After the briefest moment of resistance, Emilia's ice sword shattered with a crack.
"Well, now — !"
Seeing the sword reduced to just a hilt, Sirius grinned triumphantly and swung her arm down at Emilia. The chain around her flame-wreathed arm was a vicious weapon — upon striking, it would scorch the wound and tear it ragged.
Emilia's beautiful face was moments from being marred — "Hiyah!"
A shout unfit for the occasion rang out, and this time it was Sirius's arm that was deflected upward.
It was Emilia's ice sword that had done it.
"Aaah, aaaah! Aaaah! So irritating!"
Sirius screamed, crossing both burning arms above her head.
And crashing down right into the center of those crossed arms was the blow Emilia had swung.
What replaced the blade on the ice sword's hilt was an ice hammer that had taken a new shape from the sword. With the weight of the two-handed overhead strike, Sirius ground her teeth and staggered backward as Emilia pressed the attack.
"Hei! Tei! Yah! There! Urya! Urya urya!"
"You bastard! Half-demon! Maggot! Filth! Irritating, infuriating!"
Using centrifugal force and exquisite footwork, Emilia demonstrated close-combat prowess beyond anyone's expectations.
Facing the blows of the ice hammer, Sirius could only play defense, scattering flames as she retreated. Seeing Emilia clearly on the offensive, Subaru judged from a third-party perspective that she could win at this rate. He judged, but — "Wait — now's not the time to space out! Emilia, stop!"
"Subaru, you can't lose focus right now!"
If Emilia drove Sirius to defeat, then at that very moment "death" would be shared with everyone around them.
That sense of urgency drove Subaru to shout, but Beatrice rebuked his snap judgment. Subaru looked at her questioningly, then noticed the danger in the direction of her gaze.
"——You filthy bug."
"Oh no."
There stood a crowd of people, faces beet-red, glaring at Subaru with unhinged eyes.
Seeing Subaru and Beatrice and hurling vile insults — they were a mirror image of Sirius herself. The crowd had fully shared in Sirius's "Wrath."
And their anger was now aimed squarely at Subaru and the others.
"She can share emotions, but she can also brainwash people like her own pawns?"
"This isn't the time for that! Since there's no way to break through, we have to run!"
Subaru groaned at the troublesome situation, and in the same breath Beatrice leaped onto his back. Supporting her light body with a hand, Subaru saw the crowd surge toward them all at once.
"Emilia! Buy us some time!"
"I can't push myself too hard, you know!"
Receiving Emilia's powerful reply, Subaru accelerated backward to escape the crowd. Fortunately, the people who had lost their senses were far from steady on their feet.
They reached out with both arms toward Subaru, mindlessly spewing words of rage — in a way, they looked like zombies. The difference was that they were conscious, and that their goal wasn't to devour Subaru but to tear him apart.
"If I can just buy time, someone might notice the disturbance and..."
"Even if they arrive, it's meaningless until there's a visible way to turn the situation around. If Reinhard were to show up, that alone might make things worse."
"At least there's no worry about being summoned right away."
After all, Lachins — the one capable of summoning Reinhard — was currently red-faced and in the middle of an enthusiastic chase after Subaru. Shoving people aside with single-minded determination.
Perhaps the influence of his pre-Sirius impression of Subaru was still playing a part.
"While I'm sitting here thinking about all this——!"
"You filthy bug!"
An arm shot out from directly to his side, nearly grabbing him. Subaru ducked, dove into the opening beneath his opponent's guard, swept their legs, and sent them tumbling.
The mindlessly charging crowd collided with the man rolling at their feet and toppled en masse. Like bowling pins with hollow heads, Subaru tilted his head and said, "All that fury, and your heads can't even think straight?"
"Although, the way you just did it isn't exactly recommended either. In that state, they probably wouldn't hesitate to trample their own allies to death."
"That would be bad!"
He didn't want to create casualties.
That was the very reason Subaru fought this hard, over and over again.
Of course, Subaru understood there were limits to what he could reach.
There were so many things he wanted to protect. But what he could protect had its limits.
For
"But I'm not the one who decides where those limits are!"
"That's exactly the kind of Subaru Betty loves!"
Receiving the biggest cheer from his back, Subaru drew his beloved whip from the small of his back.
He would save as many lives as possible. So while he'd prefer minimal damage, that was the sentiment driving him. Aiming for the feet of the charging crowd, Subaru's whip cracked through the air.
The sound was like a small bolt of lightning striking, and cracks ran through the cobblestones at the crowd's feet.
Whip or not, hardly a lethal weapon — swung at full strength without restraint, it had enough power to strip away the opposition's ability to resist.
Ideally, seeing that power would make the crowd flinch, but — "That's not gonna work, huh!"
Then there was no choice.
He retracted the whip immediately after striking the ground beneath the crowd, and this time aimed for the person at the front. Medium build, slightly bluish hair, sharp eyes — or rather, it was Lachins.
An acquaintance. Even Subaru's heart ached.
"Hurts, but it's better than someone whose face I don't even know! Sorry, Chin!"
"I'm not a — gah!?!"
Subaru lashed Lachins's foot with the whip and yanked him upward in one motion. Lachins's body spun lightly in a half rotation, and the people around him went down like dominoes.
Even as he did this, Subaru angled his own body far to the left of the crowd's path of advance, directing the follow-up crowd's footing elsewhere so the fallen mass wouldn't be trampled.
"With their reason gone, I might actually be able to buy some time—"
The moment he was about to say "buy," a chill ran up the back of Subaru's neck.
That sensation was, for Subaru, like the annoying neighbor he'd been unilaterally close to — the type who, despite never wanting to run into, always taught him something useful each time they did.
In other words, he recognized it as the presence of "death."
"Whoa!!"
"You maggot!"
A great sword whistled through the air as it swung over Subaru's head.
It belonged to a beastman who had launched himself from the crowd in a single leap, aiming for Subaru's neck. He had pointed canine ears and a protruding nose and mouth, but looking closely, Subaru noticed his face had a cunning charm reminiscent of a fox.
The fox man bristled his luxuriant white tail, and undeterred by the miss, unleashed slash after slash at Subaru's neck.
"Beako!"
"Shamak!!"
"——!?"
If he faced this head-on, he'd lose his limbs in five seconds flat.
Instantly gauging the power gap, Subaru called out Beatrice's name. That alone was enough for Beatrice to grasp his intent and deploy Shamak centered on the fox man's face.
The slender, tall figure and the great sword were swallowed into the dark mist, and in an instant, the fox man lost all combat ability.
"Does that sever the sensory-sharing link with the others!?"
"I can't tell! Even if we take away his fighting power, the link itself is still intact! Probably — if that pervert dies, the curse that drags people along with him won't be dispelled!"
"What do we do!?"
"I'm thinking as hard as I can!"
There was nothing to do but leave the mystery's resolution to Beatrice.
All Subaru could do was buy Beatrice time to think while continuing to escape the enraged crowd's clutches without burdening her.
"As for Emilia-tan—"
Concerned about Emilia, who was locked in direct combat with Sirius, Subaru turned his gaze that way.
Over the past year, Emilia had continued to train herself alongside her political duties. He knew her combat ability was clearly above his own, and that her motivation was fierce.
Even so, Subaru worried about Emilia. It wasn't a question of who was stronger. It was simply that Subaru was a man and Emilia was a woman — that was everything.
A worry that some might call pointless. It was— "Hei! Yah! Soiya!"
Even as she let out her characteristically lackluster battle cries, Emilia was driving Sirius into a corner with relentless offense.
Spinning her body, Emilia brought her twin ice swords down on Sirius. Sirius whirled her scorched chain and, screaming something vile, knocked them aside.
With a shrill ring and a spray of ice shards, the swords shattered — but when Emilia crouched and thrust both arms upward from below, she held an ice lance, its tip blasting Sirius's blocking body backward.
Using her vast mana reserves to forge disposable ice weapons.
The combat technique Subaru had named "Ice Brand Arts" — with the ephemeral beauty of the shattering ice — was almost fairy-like in its phantom grace.
The numerous ice remnants scattered across the battlefield spoke to the ferocity of the clash between Emilia and Sirius. On a dance floor strewn with ice, the two warriors continued their deathmatch, wielding weapons of opposing elements — fire and ice.
"Hei, Yah!"
Chasing the sent-flying Sirius, Emilia spun her ice lance and thrust the pommel upward. Sirius caught the blow midair, skillfully dodging the striking tip and seizing the pommel.
"Blazing heat! Trembling hearts! Ah, aaaah! Aaaah! 'Wrath'!"
"Kyah!?"
Sirius screamed, and in response, the positive and negative of her thermal energy reversed.
Emilia's ice lance instantly transformed into a flame lance, and Emilia involuntarily released her grip at the heat. In that instant, Sirius landed with the flame lance and launched a counterattack.
"The indigo eyes that lure men! The bell-like voice that lures men! The soft silver hair that lures men! The fair skin that lures men! The lovable face that lures men! Ah, you harlot! You slut! Disgusting! Filthy! Is that how far you'll go to seduce men!? Is that how far you'll go to steal him from me!? You thieving cat! You thieving half-demon!"
"Hey! Stop saying weird things!"
Squinting against the heat wave passing by her face, Emilia conjured another ice sword in her hand.
The three-pronged flame lance locked head-on against the ice blade.
A violent screeching sound rang out as the monster baring its fangs and Emilia, with her strong gaze, glared at each other.
"These eyes, this voice, this silver hair — they're all the same as the most wonderful woman in the world! The same as the most amazing woman I've ever known! And you twist them into something weird like that — I'm angry!"
"Angry!? You're angry!? Don't be ridiculous! Those are mine! They're precious things that person gave me! This role, this name — everything is a gift from that person! And you'd just casually, selfishly try to take them from me... Stop! Stop stop stop stop stop stop stop! Stop iiiiit!"
As it reached the end, Sirius's scream turned to anguish.
The monster snapped the flame lance in her arms and, wielding the shortened weapon, hammered it down with alternating arms. Emilia met each fiery strike by conjuring twin ice swords.
But perhaps Emilia too had sensed something in Sirius's screams, because the fierce sense of duty on her face seemed to have dimmed.
"—This is bad."
Seeing Emilia's profile, Subaru intuited that things had gone south.
He had no proof. But he was certain.
The change in Emilia's expression meant a change in her feelings toward Sirius.
No matter how gentle a person she was, she couldn't possibly be so easily swayed by emotion in the middle of a fight. More to the point, the conversation hadn't even been one that could trigger such sympathy. And yet, that reaction existed because — "Sirius's trap is starting to close around Emilia."
But she hadn't fallen completely.
Though driven onto the defensive against Sirius's attacks, Emilia was still fighting back. She hadn't lost her sanity like the crowd, and she was still herself.
And though it was an observation that came far too late — "From the very beginning, the fact that I, Emilia, and Beatrice were all unaffected by Sirius's emotion link — what was that about?"
Was there a resistance that Emilia and Beatrice possessed, like the one Reinhard had shown? Whether there were individual differences in the sensory sharing was debatable. That Reinhard had been fine was simply because he was Reinhard, and Subaru had left it at that — that was also true.
But if there was some other reason behind it, that could be the key.
The fact that Subaru, having fallen victim to Sirius's authority three times, could still resist now — that should count as an additional condition.
If that was the breakthrough — "Bea—"
"Subaru!!"
The moment he tried to share the insight that had just struck him, a voice tinged with urgency struck his eardrums.
His eyes went wide, and in the next instant, an impact tore through his right flank.
"Gueh—"
The force of the blow nearly folded his body in half, but Subaru dodged to the left in the nick of time. Partially dodging the full brunt, he vomited bile and confirmed the hit.
What had approached with ghostly grace was the eyepatch woman, whose movements were like a shadow's. Her bare-handed palm strike had punched clean through Subaru's midsection, caught off guard as he was.
"Subaru! You can't die!"
"Not even I would go croggers from that one... Ah, damn. But it hurts...!"
His ribs creaked, but Subaru judged that neither bone nor organ was damaged. He wanted to believe it. Probably fine. No blood, no wound. He told himself so.
"Everyone's a pain in the ass when they turn enemy..."
"It's just that the enemies seem unreliable because they're strong, and seem strong because they're enemies, Subaru. That's all."
"A universal truth...!"
Lashing at the eyepatch woman's feet with his whip, Subaru flung sand at her face the moment he'd drawn her attention downward. Already half-blind in one eye, the woman writhed as the sand struck, and Subaru slammed his shoulder into her, flipping her over.
"Having their combat ability lowered across the board is a blessing. If they were at full strength, I'd be half-dead."
"...I can think of a few reasons why that's not exactly cause for celebration."
Beatrice delivered more unwelcome words to Subaru, who had stopped to catch his breath. He didn't want to hear it, but when he tilted his head, Beatrice furrowed her brow and jerked her chin.
In the direction she indicated — the great canal outside the square — "You're kidding me..."
Subaru groaned. From the street leading to the canal, people with flushed red faces were stumbling toward them, one after another.
"I think they're bystanders who heard the commotion."
"And they've entered the effective range and been swallowed by the link... You've got to be kidding. So her authority is area-of-effect on top of being contagious?"
——Panic, madness, spreads from person to person.
Sirius's emotion and sensory sharing brought that principle to vivid, horrifying life.
Ah, so that was it. The insidious scale of the damage — even Petelgeuse couldn't match this.
"The more we run, the more victims there are... What the hell are we supposed to do!?"
"But there are some strange things. The woman Subaru flipped, and the fox man hit by Shamak. And Chin Karahoi's damage didn't spread to anyone around them."
It was a serious moment, so Subaru didn't point out that Beatrice had confused Tonchinkan with Chin Karahoi. Besides, her observation could serve as a basis for deducing the conditions of Sirius's sensory sharing.
"...Should I just knock everyone out at once?"
"If Subaru had the combat ability for that, it would certainly be one option. —Using Betty's Shamak to strip everyone of consciousness is also worth considering."
A crude approach, but it had been the first one considered.
There was no time to hesitate. Subaru had to prevent the growing number of victims caused by his continued flight. For now, he would follow Beatrice's plan — "——Ugh!?"
"Emilia!?"
Just as he was about to act, a scream rang out, turning his attention.
There lay Emilia, sprawled on the square's cobblestones, with Sirius standing over her, both arms blazing as she arched her back to look down.
"It grows! It grows! The surge of 'love'! Numbers are power! The strength of unity! One for all, and all for one! People love one another and become one! We share our feelings, divide our joys and sorrows, and live together! Then this outcome is inevitable! A half-demon who refuses to join the circle of 'love' — be crushed like the insect you are and vanish!"
What had initially been Emilia's advantage had gradually shifted to equilibrium, and now tipped into disadvantage.
Was it because Sirius gained strength as time passed, or because Emilia's power waned? Facing the likely answer, Emilia looked up at Sirius, breathing hard, her face twisted with frustration.
"Something — something is wrong. What you're saying sounds right, but it feels wrong... Why is that?"
"Because you haven't reached the truth! Because you're a filthy harlot half-demon who lives and dies without knowing what 'love' truly is! Half-demons are sin incarnate! Your birth was a mistake, and your father and mother meeting was a mistake! Shit and bugs bred together, a shit-covered tale of filth — and now it's over!"
"————!"
At the end of the unbearable string of abuse, the color in Emilia's eyes changed.
This was a tirade that even the kind Emilia could not overlook — insults that degraded not just her existence, but her parents' meeting and the result of it.
Biting her lip, Emilia slapped the cobblestones and bounced to her feet. Then, at the wide-eyed Sirius, a pale blue light surged upward from directly below.
"————"
A flash of blue light ran through the air, its edge slicing shallowly through the closed coat of the recoiling Sirius.
Pressing forward with stomping steps, Emilia raised both arms high, ice swords ready to cleave the slender body before her — and then stopped.
"——Eh?"
"Nnghhh!"
—Because beneath Sirius's coat, she saw a girl bound in chains, immobilized.
The girl with golden curly hair was restrained just as Rusbel had been, blood trailing from the corner of her mouth as tears streamed down her face. Her body was firmly strapped to Sirius's slender frame.
Tina — a name surfaced in Subaru's mind.
"——That 'Wrath' is wasted on you."
The moment Subaru recognized the girl's identity, and the moment Emilia saw her tears, rage consumed them both simultaneously. In that instant, Sirius smiled with the utmost malice, and a wave of flame, more violent than ever, blasted Emilia away with terrifying force.
The roar of the explosion and the shockwave swept through the square, and Emilia's body was sent hurtling backward trailing smoke.
She bounced off the cobblestones without even managing to break her fall, tumbling to a spread-eagle rest in the center of the square.
"Ah, fu..."
Writhing in pain, Emilia let out a feeble groan.
Watching her, Sirius — who had only been burning her arms until now — extended her flames high into the sky, now visible from a great distance, and clapped her hands.
"Insects shouldn't feel such sweet passion. It's revolting."
"——!"
"Well then, thanks. Sorry about this."
Crossing her arms above her head, the vortex of fire Sirius cradled grew even more terrifying in its ferocity.
The inferno that could scorch iron merely by touching it, if brought down, would burn Emilia from existence without leaving so much as a shadow.
He had to stop it now. He had to rescue Emilia and find a way to escape. He knew this, and yet — "Move, damn it, legs!"
"Nnnnnn!"
Subaru's legs wouldn't obey him, trembling as if paralyzed by fear.
The change in Subaru's body had begun the instant he saw the girl restrained against Sirius's torso. Even Beatrice, on his back, was gritting her teeth, unable to move.
The sensory sharing worked on spirits too. What a stupid thing to think about now — "Emi...lia...!"
His constricted throat trembled, unable even to call the name of the girl he loved.
That voice surely never reached Emilia.
Emilia, lying powerless on the cobblestones — what had she thought, facing the inferno bearing down on her?
——That too, was already drowned out beneath the sound of everything burning, and no one would ever know.
A tremendous output of heat scorched the square's cobblestones, and the heatwave struck like an impact, painting the world gold.
Before that strangely mystical spectacle, Subaru fell to his knees, trembling.
"Suba...ru..."
Beatrice, on his back, called his name in a halting voice.
He couldn't respond to her voice. His gaze fixed downward, Subaru remained swallowed by the terror gripping his entire body, refusing to face the reality before him.
If he looked up now, if he looked at where the flames had fallen, he would lose to fear.
No — his heart, already broken, would shatter completely.
If he saw that Emilia had been burned away, erased from this world — "Suba — Subaru. Subaru!"
Even so, desperately, Beatrice continued to call his name.
His head struck repeatedly, and even that Subaru feared, his terrified heart still shaking his head slowly from side to side.
It was impossible. Even if a monster stood before him, Subaru would — "—I made it."
But the instant he heard that voice, Subaru's heart lost not to the fear he could not face, but to a terror he could not comprehend.
He raised his head and looked toward the voice — toward the spot where Emilia had been consumed by flame.
There, a single man stood.
In the charred ruin where black smoke still curled and the sound of heat-cracked stone still rang — a man stood there, composed and unraveled.
And in his arms was — "Emi...lia..."
The girl, whom he had assumed lost to the flames.
Her eyes were closed and she appeared unconscious, but her body was undamaged in every respect.
Shaken by the accumulated damage and the symbol of the terror that had loomed before her, Emilia was unharmed. She was safe.
"You're..."
The person who had appeared without warning and rescued Emilia.
As Subaru's fearful heart refused to openly celebrate Emilia's safety, he called out to the man's back in a trembling voice.
The man heard him and turned around.
And he said: "I came to pick her up. I'm truly glad I made it in time."
"What... what do you mean?"
"——Isn't it only natural to take the hand of the woman who will be my wife?"
At the sudden words, Subaru was struck speechless.
As Subaru froze, his breath caught, the man — a white-haired young man — smiled faintly and said: "I am an Archbishop of Sin of the
With a face that betrayed not the slightest hesitation, stating a simple fact: "As promised — I shall make her my seventy-ninth wife."