In the end, Liliana couldn't remember what had first inspired her to start singing.
The Masquerade lineage had, since the time of Liliana's mother's mother's mother's mother and beyond, been a family that never settled anywhere, wandering the world ceaselessly.
Bards made their living as rootless drifters, and naturally, people grew tired of them quickly. They never stayed in one place, wandering wherever the wind blew, traveling on their own two feet.
Among bards, there were apparently those who gathered in large groups and performed as troupes, but Liliana didn't have a temperament that enjoyed belonging to a crowd. She didn't dislike people, exactly, but their sensibilities didn't align. To put it plainly, their musical sensibilities differed.
Like her mothers before her, Liliana set out on her journey alone.
Still, her striking out on her own had to be acknowledged as quite early, even among bards—most of whom leaned toward permissiveness. She had left her parents' side at the tender age of thirteen.
"Oh, forget this! I'm not going to rot away in a place like this! Your father and mother can do as they please!"
It may not have been over something trivial, but she had certainly stormed out in the heat of an argument.
From around the time she turned ten, Liliana had wanted nothing more than to strike out on her own. This was a hopelessly reckless notion for such a dreamy girl, and her parents—her mother in particular—had fought tooth and nail to keep her home.
Yet even at ten, young Liliana's emotions had already ripened somewhat beyond those of an ordinary girl her age. Her father played the lyre, her mother sang countless poems, and Liliana had grown up steeped in that world. The influence of that upbringing was far from insignificant.
For young Liliana, the people who appeared in her mother's songs were figures of deep admiration.
The more she learned of their adventures and challenges, their battles and romances, their struggles and self-denial, the less she could bear the thought of standing still.
—The people she knew so well through song lived so freely, choosing their own paths.
For ten-year-old Liliana, the heroes and legends from those songs were her friends. She yearned to walk the same roads they had walked, to see the same landscapes they had seen, to stand beneath the same sky they had all gazed up at, to taste it all just as they had.
Harboring those feelings for three years—she had actually shown considerable restraint.
Liliana burned through the fire of her passion and her one-sided sense of kinship with those storybook figures. She stole, piece by piece, the lyre technique from her father and the singing voice and countless famous songs from her mother.
And on the night she turned thirteen, when her mother handed down the family heirloom lyre, a spectacular parent-child quarrel erupted, and she stormed out of the family home to live on her own.
"Mwahahaha! Just you wait and see, Mom and Dad! I'll become the King of Bards!"
Having shaken off her parents' pursuit completely, alone under the night sky, she swore that vow.
Thus began the grand adventure of
—Looking back now, she understood that the quarrel had been an act of love on her parents' part.
From the time she was ten, her parents had harped endlessly on her recklessness. They pointed out her immaturity, laughed at her laziness with song, and occasionally withheld meals.
"Oh-ho-ho-ho! A little pipsqueak like you striking out on your own is ten years too early! A girl with such an attitude gets no rabbit meat!"
"My, my, how pitiful! Rabbit meat stewed to perfection today, and you get none! The child who won't listen to Mother and Father is so pitiful!"
They were the kind of people who, whether for better or worse, seemed born to chase dreams.
For such people, the departure of their only daughter must have been agonizing. Surely there had been all manner of conflict when the time came to part.
"Well, that's one fewer mouth to feed! I can eat three meals a day now!"
"Once Liliana's gone, let's have another child or two!"
There must have been conflict. They must have grieved to let her go. There was no doubt about it.
And that quarrel had been her parents' final gift to Liliana.
They had fought so bitterly so that even if Liliana's dreams shattered and she wanted to run back home, she wouldn't be able to. They had traded such hurtful words to cut off every retreat.
When people believe they have an escape route, they grow weak. If there is a home to cling to, the spirit of challenge will refuse to burn until the very end.
Bards, of all people, had no homeland of their own.
Home and family—the two foundations every person is meant to possess—were combined into one. The attachment to family runs deep, unconsciously. Severing that attachment was the greatest obstacle to independence.
Liliana had overcome it through the recklessness of youth and the sagacious love of her parents.
Later, Liliana would realize their thoughtfulness on the night she was on the verge of collapse—starving, gnawing on grass roots, beaten down by hunger and helplessness, on the verge of whimpering, "I want to go home..."
If she had broken at that point, Liliana might have put down her lyre for good. She was grateful to her parents. The parting had surely been for the best, for both sides.
"Oh—"
"Gah!"
"Well, my."
Of course, the awkwardness of running into them again a few years later in a certain town had been extraordinary. And it was made all the worse by the fact that her parents were cradling a little girl Liliana didn't know.
She guessed the child must be her sister, but Liliana exchanged no words with her parents. She simply held her chest high, straightened her back, and walked past them.
If she could, a few years from now, achieve accomplishments that truly warranted pride, perhaps she could meet her parents again on equal terms and exchange words with a smile.
But for now, she was still insufficient. So today, this was as far as it went.
Of course, there was always the possibility that this encounter would be the last time she would ever see her parents. The chances of her ever telling her unknown little sister that she was her elder were likely even slimmer.
But that was all right. This was the life Liliana had chosen—the life of one who walks beside song.
Besides, someday, when Liliana became a bard famous throughout the entire world, her parents—those incorrigible braggarts—would surely tell everyone they knew. And the first person to suffer as the subject of their boasting would undoubtedly be her little sister. So why not add that to her ambitions? The thought alone was exhilarating.
"Heheh, a rather exciting future indeed! Well, not as exciting as all that!"
With such thoughts, she set off anew—seventeen-year-old Liliana Masquerade.
Now, the twenty-two-year-old Liliana had been independent for nine years—and naturally, that had been a succession of hardships. Her life had been far from smooth sailing.
Right after setting out at thirteen, for instance—on the very day after swearing to become the King of Bards, and the day after that, she was already on the verge of death. Had a passing caravan of merchants not picked her up and let her work as a general helper to save up travel funds, she would have genuinely died alone in the wilderness.
They were a merchant caravan traveling between various lands, trading goods.
Liliana had been taken in by this caravan and looked after as a general helper and entertainer. In exchange for food and a bed, she traveled far more safely and comfortably than she would have alone.
Whenever they arrived in a town, Liliana would shoulder her lyre and sing on the street to earn her keep. The thrill she felt at receiving her first coin—earned entirely on her own, without her mother or father's hand—was something she could never forget.
She traveled with the caravan for about a year, but it was disbanded when the leader settled down in a town and had saved enough to open a shop. Several of the scattering merchants invited Liliana to continue traveling with them, but she politely declined and went on alone.
She gave up safe, comfortable travel to become a lone wanderer honing her fangs.
The warm baths were over. The legend of Liliana Masquerade was about to begin. She was certain of it.
As for the hardships of the years that followed—she would spare the reader the details.
While she was part of a merchant group, or while she bore the name of a renowned bard clan, she could count on a certain level of respect. But once that was gone, the world's winds turned cold for a small-fry songstress.
It was around this time that she finally grasped the truth behind her parents' parting kindness.
And there was another great truth about the world that Liliana came to understand at this point.
It was this: the world she inhabited and the world where the characters of her beloved stories lived were not one and the same. She was not their comrade, not one of them.
The realization came not from some dramatic event.
It arrived quietly, on a night when she was doing what she always did—gnawing on grass roots, eating untouched red berries she found in the mountains, and then suffering alone through endless stomach cramps and fever from food poisoning.
The heroes of the wonderful stories she knew would never end up like this.
Because those stories were already finished. The days when they coughed up blood, spoke of dreams, screamed their wishes, and swung their swords were in the far distant past. Liliana had merely borrowed the dregs of their footprints and was passing them on to others.
Liliana loved them, but they could never love her in return.
Her feelings were a one-way road leading to a dead end called the past—a dead end where her heart lost all direction.
—So then, what was a bard?
Having stormed out of her parents' home declaring "I'll become the King of Bards," having spent several years calling herself a bard, Liliana finally realized she was a fraud.
She had collided, completely unguarded, with a wall she had never once considered, and it felt as though every bone in her nose and every front tooth had been shattered.
For three days and three nights, Liliana's stomach cramps, fever, and vomiting continued.
Even in her delirious dreams, she pondered it endlessly.
On the morning of the fourth day, Liliana recovered. She washed her face in a stream and drank water.
Her reflection in the water looked entirely different from before.
The wind stirred the grass and trees, the stream babbled coolly, and the sounds of insects and birds filled the air.
It was the first time she felt music in all of that.
Tears overflowed, and Liliana could not contain herself. She threw herself into the stream.
The insects, the birds, the fish—all were startled, and music overflowed from everything. Liliana surfaced, her face crumpled in laughter and tears, laughing and crying and laughing and screaming.
She climbed down the mountain, clothes filthy with mud and water, and stood on the city street.
A shabby, dirt-stained girl clutching an instrument—everyone kept their distance, repulsed. The shopkeeper whose storefront she was performing in front of wore a grim expression, and passersby looked openly displeased.
If she had stood there motionless for even a few seconds longer, someone without pity might have shoved her aside.
But Liliana moved swiftly. Not because she was thinking she needed to start quickly or be chased away.
She simply, desperately, wanted to sing.
"—"
When the lyre strings were plucked, how many people even noticed?
How many noticed that amid the shabby, dirt-stained girl, only her well-worn lyre and the hands touching it were clean?
How many noticed, no one could say for certain.
But if one thing was certain, it was that the awareness of those who did notice was instantly drawn away from everything else.
"—"
The moment Liliana's performance began—when music poured forth from those delicate, graceful fingers—every person on that street froze in their tracks, their breath held.
In an instant, everyone understood that something dramatic had shifted, and they were bewildered by the tidal wave that had crashed into their hearts.
When they realized the source was the dirt-stained girl standing in the street, all eyes converged on her.
Liliana felt that attention gather, and she understood herself. The stage had been built, and she was charging up toward it in a single burst.
And when the heat of the performance reached its climax, Liliana's voice began.
It was a 'song' so different from anything she had sung before that she could hardly believe the same thing was pouring from her own throat.
Feelings for all the famous songs she knew surged through her and soared upward.
Those songs she had always felt were inseparable friends—she watched them ascend to the heavens with a clear, open heart.
—Song was a gift. For the friends of old whose songs she carried forward, she was nobody.
And that was fine. Liliana understood her own existence, and the existence of bards, in this way.
Understanding this, she could still continue to sing.
She would go around boasting: this world once had people this magnificent.
She would boast, mistakenly but proudly, that there was once a time when she believed she was friends with such wonderful people.
And someday—someday she would truly befriend someone great, and she would sing about it, boasting, "I once had a friend as amazing as this!"
"—"
When the song ended, Liliana was weeping.
The stunned listeners, moved to tears just as she was, sniffled and sobbed.
A thunderous applause engulfed the street, and Liliana Masquerade became a bard.
And from that day forward, Liliana's bond with music had never broken.
※※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ Recalling the first time she had sung after leaving home, and the first time she had sung after becoming a 'bard,' Liliana sang from the top of the blazing control tower.
The same reckless passion from those days churned in her chest.
She wanted to sing so badly it was unbearable. There were too many things she wanted to put into words, too many things she wanted to turn into sound. Even while singing, she wanted to sing more. This was, by now, an illness.
The white flames that chose their prey and burned them away still roared upward with undiminished ferocity.
The searing heat could not reach Liliana, but the scorching torment wracked her body without end. The soles of her feet burned with pain, and the body that had sprinted through the stone tower surrounded by those flames continued to scream. The agony was so intense she wanted to drop to her knees and sob.
But sobbing was out of the question. Rolling around would be a waste.
Below her were people who would listen to her sing. This throat was made for song, not for crying.
"—"
The melody she sang was not one inherited from her mother or her clan.
As a bard whose purpose was to carry stories forward through song, this might have been disqualifying—but it was the first song Liliana had received as a gift, back when she had first come to know the music that filled the world.
When the new dawn arrived, the sky was stained crimson and gold.
She loved the sky that appeared as night was chased away and a new day began.
And beyond even that crimson-gold dawnbreak, the blue sky ushered in the true morning.
—The sky that surpassed the dawn.
No matter what kind of night one endured, morning always came.
For everyone, without exception, the blue sky that outstripped the dawn heralded a new beginning.
"—"
Right now, the city was drowning in chaos. Most people were swallowed by anxiety and grief, unable to move.
In the pitch-dark night with no light ahead or behind, everyone was struggling, clawing their way forward. That was undeniable.
But Liliana wanted to sing that morning would still come.
She thought it, and because she wanted to, she sang.
There was nothing more painful to her than holding back the song she wanted to sing when she wanted to sing it.
So she sang, pouring everything she had into it, telling the world what she wanted to say right now.
From the top of the control tower, Liliana kept singing, her throat trembling.
Her fingers danced across the lyre strings, and in truth, she danced as she sang and played. She used every inch of the tower's summit, singing so that the vast crowd surrounding her could hear.
But sadly, her voice could never reach the eardrums of all those people.
It wasn't merely a matter of volume. There was the problem of distance. The problem of the listeners' hearts. No matter how much heart Liliana put in, there were walls—both physical and mental—through which she simply could not reach.
Liliana believed in the power of song.
But song only became song when it reached someone—only when that purpose was fulfilled.
How many people surrounded her, on the verge of being crushed by anxiety and grief?
Hundreds, perhaps a thousand—no, possibly thousands. Liliana had never experienced singing to so many people without the aid of a magical amplifier, on her own power alone.
She had no means of amplifying her voice, no way to reach them all at once. These were things no ordinary person could possess.
Liliana's challenge was reckless, and her wish was impossibly distant.
Once, the ten-year-old Liliana had been told by no one other than her parents that her ambitions outstripped her abilities.
Was it the same now? Was she repeating the same mistake?
The power of song was real—yet she herself remained a fraud.
Was it all right to end here?
"—!"
No. No, she couldn't accept it. That self-doubt seared her throat.
And in that instant— 『Liliana—lovely songstress. Won't you captivate me for all eternity with that voice of yours?』
A fool's words, a fool's pickup line, resurfaced in Liliana's mind.
He had been an odd man. To be blunt, an eccentric. Perhaps 'pervert' was more accurate.
There had been others before who approached Liliana with impure intentions after hearing her sing.
Every one of them, she had driven away. Her throat was not for loan to those who lacked sincerity toward song and sought to exploit it for ulterior motives. That was a bard's sense of duty.
『I was struck by your beauty. Please, stay by my side!』
He was the first person to approach her with ulterior motives based on her appearance.
Liliana didn't learn he knew she was a bard until after he had hit on her based on her looks alone. Even on the occasion she sang before him, he had been staring at her face, chest, and legs more than listening to the song—and frankly, it had been unpleasant.
However, he had genuinely been moved by her song. And his affection for Liliana the person was no lie he tried to disguise.
He was attracted to Liliana's appearance, showed appreciation for her singing, and after learning who she was, did not leave.
『The city of
『Y-Yes... But what does that have to do with me?』
『I was thinking—why not have Liliana's song carried over the broadcast? There are still many people in the city who don't know your singing. I would love for you to take this opportunity.』
A song broadcast through a magical device—even Liliana thought it was heretical.
Shouldn't a song be sung face-to-face with those who listen? Liliana tried to decline, reluctant. But he smiled carefree and easy: 『I want your figure for myself alone. But your song should never be kept for just one person. Let the songstress belong to everyone, and let Liliana belong to me—can't we wish for both?』
What an incorrigible man, smiling without a shred of malice.
If he thought this was wooing her, she wanted to laugh in his face.
Liliana knew many love stories sung across this world.
She knew those who were moved to passion by romance, who fell head over heels in love. She knew what words captivated them, what attitudes made their hearts race, and whether love succeeded or failed.
So she wasn't so naïve as to be swept off her feet by those words.
She wasn't naïve—but 'songstress' had a nice ring to it.
It was far too grandiose a title for her to hold her chest out and claim it suited her. But Kirithaka Muse had expected Liliana to be a 'songstress.' That man had made her the 'songstress' of this city.
"—"
Reach them, resound, shake them with these feelings—!
No matter how dark the night, no matter how impenetrable the blackness— Morning would come all the same.
She would sing, believing in that more strongly, more loudly, than anyone.
As Liliana Masquerade, the 'songstress' of the Water Gate City Priestella.
"—"
The heat she had felt so intensely, the pain—she felt none of it now.
Everything she had was poured into her wrists playing the lyre, her feet dancing, and her throat singing on.
As if everything else was being squeezed dry, it all flowed out.
Every emotion, every last note of her voice—all of it.
"—"
Singing, singing, pouring her soul into song, Liliana was unaware.
Unaware that the voices of anguish from those whose hearts had been captured no longer reached her ears.
Outside the burning waterways, the people writhing in pain and sorrow looked up at the sky.
No—not the sky. Toward the voice. The blazing control tower wreathed in flame.
At its peak, a small figure continued to pour out her voice from a distance that seemed impossibly far.
They could not tear their eyes from her. Every person strained their ears, holding their breath as they listened to the song.
The song that should never have reached them was clearly audible to everyone.
This was no miracle, nor a collective hallucination. It was certainly not the sharing of emotions through the authority of a Great Sin Archbishop.
—It was the true blossoming of the 'Divine Blessing of Communion,' a gift bestowed upon Liliana by the heavens.
The power of this blessing, which had until now operated unconsciously, only now revealed its true potential. Bolstered by Liliana's skill as a singer and the resolve to throw everything away for this one moment, it became a vast power that poured down upon the city.
Naturally, Liliana was not conscious of any of this.
And there was no one present who would crudely explain the truth to her.
Liliana simply sang with all her soul, pouring the entirety of song into this moment, surrendering everything she had.
There, upon the tower, the song of Priestella's 'songstress' truly resounded.
※※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ "—As I thought, my eye for choosing her was not wrong."
The solar sword, glowing red-hot like a sun held within its blade, was gripped in Priscilla's hand. She smiled.
The song reached even Priscilla's ears.
Using the blazing white control tower as her stage, Liliana poured forth the finest singing voice imaginable.
Even granting that the solar sword's flames chose what they burned, the heat the flames carried was no illusion. The inside of the control tower was sweltering, the heated stone radiating high temperatures. In this very instant, it should have been so unbearable that she would want to leap from the tower.
Yet the song—into which every last one of Liliana's emotions was supposedly being poured—contained not the slightest whiff of complaints about pain or bravado in the face of suffering.
Not because she felt nothing. Simply, the pain was truly and purely transcended by the song.
It was a staggeringly foolish conclusion. Only a fool could reach it—the pinnacle of foolishness.
The ultimate expression of a gifted fool was precisely this: producing results so foolish they overturned all reason.
"That one's foolishness is... delightful. Stupidity and foolishness are similar yet different things. There is no value in living stupidly, but foolishness has the redeeming quality of being entertaining. And she has proven, through her own actions, that she holds worth beyond mere entertainment. Therefore—I shall bestow a reward upon her deed."
Before Priscilla could finish her reflection, a chain wreathed in fire descended from above and the left. The iron serpent's jaw, wreathed in flame, hurtled straight toward Priscilla, who had halted her feet.
She snorted at the utter lack of refinement and grace.
Raising the solar sword, its crimson blade flashed in a diagonal arc.
By intercepting the two incoming trajectories—above and left—simultaneously, the charging chains were torn aside in a single sweep. Two nearly simultaneous metallic notes rang out, and the monstrosity, facing that brilliance, clicked its tongue in loathing.
"You and that girl are equally annoying! What is the difference between me and her! Our methods differ but our essence is identical! We are proof that those who resonate through one thing become one!"
Sirius shouted at the top of her lungs, pulling the severed chain tips toward her.
She spun her arms, spewing flame in a torrent of fury, her coat's hem rippling in the heat. Her bloodshot eyes were fixed on Liliana dancing atop the burning control tower.
The true power of Liliana's 'Divine Blessing of Communion' was tremendous, and its aftershocks reached even the monstrosity.
Even the monstrosity, sensitive to shifts in others' emotions, felt the song's effects without distortion.
The residents were being freed from the 'Wrath' curse rooted deep in the monstrosity's psyche.
Outside the still-burning white waterways, the standing people's eyes held no madness. What filled their gazes was not frenzy, but only glistening tears.
What complex, tangled emotions had given rise to those tears, the monstrosity could not discern. They shifted and fluctuated without settling on a single thing.
"If only that person—only if that person were here, I could prove it! Why do you all stand in my way like this! People yearn for one another, they want to become one! That is how the world has continued! And yet—!"
"Even a single song, the way it is felt varies from person to person. One may be captivated by a masterpiece and call it 'wonderful,' yet the meaning packed into that single word differs for everyone. You cry out so loudly about what emotions should do, yet your understanding of what matters most is shallow... That, I suppose, is what you'd call stupid."
"Oh, shut UP!"
Sirius's eyes widened at Priscilla's merciless words, and she howled as she brought both hands together. Chains clattered where her palms overlapped, and she tore them forcibly from her arms.
Skin ripped from her flesh, flesh was torn away—the act of pain served to free both her arms. Sirius gathered the torn chains into a bundle and swung them with savage force.
The spinning chains caught fire, the flames expanding to the full radius of their rotation.
The white-hot inferno formed a disc, its monstrous heat so great that even Sirius herself was engulfed in flame.
"—Don't tell me those bandages were wrapped around you for precisely this purpose?"
If the reason for her bandages was burns, and the cause was right before her eyes, then nothing could be more foolish.
Facing the greatest power and greatest threat he had yet shown, Priscilla's demeanor did not waver.
Two fire serpents, the combined might of their flames, and a firepower surpassing even that.
Priscilla gazed with bored dispassion at the vortex of flame that would, without question, obliterate everything—including her shadow.
"The tremor of emotion... a violent stirring of the heart—passion, in other words. The passion called 'Wrath'!"
Surrendering to the very emotion he had once reviled and cursed, Sirius's flames became a blazing storm.
The force of the rotation carried the flames outward, becoming a torrent that had already abandoned any pretense of being chains. The moment the fire was released, the chains had served their purpose.
The chains that had finished their role melted and vanished in an instant, and only a mass of flame surged toward Priscilla. It was an area attack so vast it seemed to cover not merely the sky but the entire world.
Evasion was impossible. Defense would be swallowed whole.
Against the flame itself, only one thing could be done.
"—If my will be the will of heaven, then the solar sword's aurora shall likewise obey."
Priscilla took her stance against the approaching wall of flame.
Not the formless, casual stance from before, but a proper overhead guard, the sword raised high above her head.
"Burn to ash—!!"
"—"
In the instant of collision, Sirius hurled hatred through the flames at Priscilla on the other side.
Priscilla let that fury pass through her. Only the song reached her ears.
At the very instant the heat wave was about to consume her body, the solar sword changed.
The treasure blade that had previously outshone every jewel in brilliance suddenly lost its light, leaving only the red hilt and crimson blade in Priscilla's grip.
And with that, the now-lightless sword was smashed into the flames.
"—"
Stripped of its radiance, the sword became nothing more than divine steel stripped of divinity.
Thus, with no power left to repel the incoming fire, anyone watching objectively might have assumed the worst.
—Yet the outcome was the complete opposite.
"—Now, feast on this."
Priscilla's whispered words as she brought the solar sword crashing down should have been swallowed by the flames and silenced.
But her existence had not vanished. Quite the contrary—there was not even the afterglow of the heat wave upon her. She stood, beautiful and unharmed.
The firestorm that had boasted such tremendous firepower had been completely extinguished, without a trace remaining.
As if only the solar sword—now blazing with renewed light—knew where the flames had gone.
"—!"
The moment Priscilla gripped the restored sword, her expression changed.
The confident smile on her cheek hardened, and she clenched her jaw as she broke into a sprint.
Her gaze was fixed on Sirius's back, already fleeing ahead of her.
The monstrosity's powerful legs were carrying it away from Priscilla at alarming speed. It was clear that its dash was made without waiting to see the result of the flames.
Sirius's target had never been Priscilla from the start— "Shut up with that grating song—! Don't you dare selfishly deny the 'Wrath' between me and that person—!!"
With bloodshot eyes, Sirius charged in a straight line toward the control tower where Liliana sang.
The white flames surrounding the tower were flames that granted freedom only to Liliana. The moment Sirius plunged in, the fire would engulf its entire body and burn it to nothing.
The monstrosity understood that much. If so, its true goal was— "Fool! You shall not touch what is mine—!"
Priscilla's body exploded off the ground with tremendous propulsive force, crossing the plaza in an instant. Sirius's speed was formidable, but Priscilla's surpassed it.
The advantage Sirius had initially held vanished, and Priscilla raised the solar sword toward the monstrosity's back. The monstrosity had already lost its weapons. With no chains on its arms, there was nothing to block Priscilla's blade.
"Stop, you vulgar—"
"Shut up! You stop—!!"
"—!?"
The moment before the solar sword would have bisected Sirius diagonally, Priscilla's body froze in midair. As if her entire body had been locked solid, she was forcibly immobilized, and Priscilla choked on a shock that lay beyond her awareness.
In that moment, Sirius swung its leg. From beneath the hem of the pants that flipped up, the now-familiar sound of chains was heard—and— "Ruuuuaaaaaaah!"
"Tch—!"
Not from the arms, but from chains wrapped around its legs—a strike that hammered into the immobilized Priscilla head-on.
Frozen in place, she had no defense this time.
The chain's impact, carrying several times the speed and power it had when wielded by arm, blasted directly into Priscilla's refined face. The collision of steel against flesh rang out, the barrette holding back her orange hair shattered into fragments, and her beautiful hair cascaded free.
The face she lowered bore no wound. However, her pride had been wounded.
Deflected backward with residual force, the distance between her and Sirius widened.
In that time, Sirius had closed in on the control tower. With a chain wrapped around its leg—the same one that had knocked Priscilla back—it moved with inhuman agility, putting its full weight and power into one final swing.
The fire-encircled great serpent swept across the control tower in a devastating horizontal blow. The stone tower's foundations exploded with a thunderous roar, crumbling and collapsing as every building material was swallowed by the wave of flame.
—The tower tilted violently, on the verge of collapse, with Liliana still upon it.
Priscilla spread her orange hair across her back as she stared wide-eyed at the crumbling control tower.
Sirius was visible. On the tilting tower's summit, Liliana was not.
But Liliana's song continued—even as the ground crumbled beneath her, even as she was engulfed by the collapse.
Liliana fulfilled her role, continuing to hold the hearts of the residents captive.
"—Her conviction is just!"
Priscilla surged forward without hesitation, charging at Sirius.
If Liliana's song was cut short, the residents' hearts would fall back under Sirius's sway. In a split-second decision, Priscilla's solar sword blazed brighter, and her single step shattered the cobblestones.
"You selfish ascetic! Don't try to justify your inability to empathize with others! You're not broken because you can't connect with people—connecting, merging, that's what it means to be human!"
"How vulgar."
Sirius, who had destroyed the control tower, cursed Priscilla for choosing to fly at it.
Priscilla leaped, and as her heel descended, a chain came crashing down. The shockwave detonated, flames erupted, and the blast hurled Priscilla's body backward. She steadied herself and pressed forward.
Waves of heat washed over her, but Priscilla's crimson eyes did not waver.
Neither did Sirius's madness. The monstrosity's mind had already ceased to listen to anyone's voice.
It was a complete impasse. Their values were irreconcilable. The two could never coexist.
"—"
The tilting control tower groaned violently as shattered stone blocks were flung in every direction. Smoke and fire spiraled outward, and the plaza became a scorched hell.
People in the waterway on the side toward which the tower was falling fled, tears streaming and screams rising. But those tears were not from sorrow. They were for something else entirely—for the song.
"Love means becoming one—!"
"No, it doesn't. —Love means accepting that it's all right to be different. The notion that everyone must look the same way, think the same thoughts, and feel the same feelings—it's enough to make one's skin crawl."
Dodging a sweeping chain by ducking, Priscilla flew low to the ground.
Sirius clicked his tongue and created multiple walls of flame to block her path, but the solar sword cleaved through every one, its crimson blade devouring them.
The distance closed. The chain strikes grew more numerous and more powerful.
The sound of steel clashing was drowned out by the thunderous collapse of the tower. Racing through that cacophony, Priscilla's momentum finally reached Sirius.
"Time's up."
"—Let's see about that, shall we!?"
The instant the raised solar sword came crashing down, Sirius tore open the front of its coat.
Revealed within the monstrosity's chest, wrapped as tightly as around its limbs, were chains—and bound to the torso by those chains was a young girl with golden curls— "Mnnn—!"
The girl's name was Tena, and ever since this chaos began, she had been held captive by Sirius. Priscilla had no way of knowing this.
In the intelligence Subaru had revealed regarding the 'Wrath' assault, her name had been included, but Priscilla's mind had registered the fact as trivial.
Therefore, Priscilla hesitated not at all, even before the hostage that was thrust before her.
The descending blade did not slacken. It cut through Sirius's body diagonally, taking Tena with it. The solar sword's blade, boasting tremendous thermal energy, sliced through the chains protecting the body without so much as a sound, bisected it, and achieved its purpose.
"Oh— my?"
"My solar sword burns what I wish to burn, and cuts what I wish to cut."
The chains were severed, and the restrained girl's body was freed. She collapsed to her knees on the spot, raising a tear-stained face and staring in disbelief at the sensation of the blade's passage across her body.
On that young girl's body, there was not a single cruel wound from the blade.
It was Sirius who bled, staggering backward from the blow.
The monstrosity looked down at its wound, shook its head slowly, and fixed Priscilla with its gaze.
"This pain... and you felt—"
"Why would I feel your pain? As for this nonsense about 'becoming one'—die alone with your delusions intact."
Priscilla's solar sword smashed sideways into the monstrosity's tilted head.
With tremendous force and sound, Sirius's body bounced across the cobblestones, spraying blood, flew through the air, and was flung into the waterway with a splash.
Water rose. Priscilla stared at the solar sword.
"Daylight fades, and the sun dims. That was quite troublesome."
The words had barely left her mouth when the collapsing control tower finally crumbled completely. Most of it was reduced to rubble, and the upper section where Liliana had been was severely damaged in the aftermath.
The tower that had collapsed into the waterway—naturally, the song could no longer be heard.
"...Ah—n."
A small voice called out to Priscilla, who had been squinting at the rubble mountain.
It was Tena. She still wore an expression of disbelief at her own freedom, but when she met Priscilla's downward gaze, her body trembled and tears spilled freely.
Priscilla let out a soft sigh. The solar sword had already vanished.
The white flames that had burned the waterways were gone as well, and a great number of people were approaching. Some were heading toward the pile of rubble, apparently intending to search for the songstress buried within.
"What a noisy night, full of noisy people. This would be the perfect occasion for verse and song—nothing short of sloth, truly. —How tedious."
In her usual bored tone, yet with some measure of feeling beneath the boredom.
Priscilla turned her back on the sobbing child, gazing out at the waterway, and murmured: "Still, it was not unpleasant. You have my praise."
※※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ Slowly, slowly, carried along by the current of the water.
Her whole body was heavy, her willpower completely drained—how should one put it? Cripples and wrecks? That was about the size of it. She couldn't move a muscle.
"Ahhh... uhhh..."
Her throat was completely spent, and not a single fingertip would obey her.
Fortunately, a bard's costume was skimpy and used little fabric, so when she fell into the waterway, it didn't absorb much water and weigh her down—a lifeline, of sorts.
For someone like her, who had no energy left to swim, simply managing to float was a godsend. Well, if she truly just let herself keep drifting like this, eventually her body temperature would drop dangerously low.
Oh, and speaking in her inner voice while raising her voice like this was painful too. She wanted to just go to sleep. She'd probably die, though.
"Ehhh... ehhh..."
The burning control tower—flickering, flickering, still blazing.
Since her body had been basically smoking the entire time, she had initially thought falling into the waterway might feel refreshingly cool. But by now she could barely feel the chill either, which was—well, rather dangerous.
And when it came to danger, the fact that she hadn't even tried to escape from the crumbling stone tower, singing all the way until she slipped into the water—that mental state was arguably far more dangerous.
Because, because—it had felt so incredibly wonderful. It was as if she had been living for that very moment, and it had carried her forward with a force that proved it.
If her conviction wasn't mistaken, and things had gone well...
Well, her head was still attached, so presumably Priscilla hadn't been defeated. That meant things had gone well. That was a relief.
Yes, that was fine then. Truly fine.
Liliana still had a mountain of unrealized ambitions as a bard, but in a sense, she had accomplished what she was meant to accomplish at this place.
She might not have achieved the goal of singing a song for the ages, but if the people present had been saved, then perhaps she had left a footprint worthy of being a topic of conversation at someone's dinner table. She could at least hope for that much.
"Ooh... ooh..."
Incidentally, the odd noises she had been making were partly a signal that she was here, and partly because if she didn't keep her lungs vibrating, she felt like her entire body would give out.
The proof that she was herself ultimately came down to her voice. That was the state of things. But even that was probably about to end.
It had been an eventful life, but all things considered, it had been a pleasant one.
Well then, thank you all so much for—gah!?
"Ow! Oww! Something struck the top of my head with excruciating force!"
"Hm!? What was that—eh? Liliana!?"
Her head had slammed into something with tremendous force, and when the pain subsided enough for her to think, it seemed she had collided with a small boat floating in the waterway.
And from atop that boat came a familiar male voice.
"Could it be—Kirithaka!?"
"Indeed, it's Liliana! I'm so glad we've reunited! But why are you in the waterway!? Well, never mind, I'll pull you up. Hold on!"
Kirithaka was bustling about on the boat, sending it rocking violently. The boat was positioned right in the path of the current carrying her body, and honestly, it hurt quite a bit.
But she was too startled to register the pain.
Because, think about it—being picked up by Kirithaka on this particular current? The sheer embarrassment was beyond words.
"Almost—there. You're up!"
Kirithaka dug both hands under my sides and hauled me up. His hands happened to land on my chest, but frankly, I had no energy left to be offended, so never mind for now.
Pulled onto the boat, I still couldn't move and simply lay there limply.
"Your body has gotten quite cold. Wait here, Liliana. I'm going to heat the fire-mineral stone. And we can't have you staying wet."
He brought a towel and vigorously rubbed my hair and face.
His touch was surprisingly gentle, and she thought—he really wasn't just putting on the gentleman act. Then a wave of relief washed over her, and she let out a breath.
"Kirithaka... what have you been doing all this time?"
"Me? Well, various things, hm, contributing to the reconquest of the city!"
He pushed back his pride and joy—his bangs—and was probably making his teeth sparkle, she imagined.
She lacked the energy to open her eyes and confirm, but the image formed in her mind regardless.
She couldn't help but laugh, and felt Kirithaka's surprise.
She wanted to hear about his adventures, and she wanted to tell him about hers, too.
But right now, she was overwhelmingly sleepy. Still, there was one thing she wanted to say.
"I'm extremely sleepy, so I'm going to sleep now... if that's alright..."
"A-ah, understood. I'll carry you somewhere safe, so please don't worry."
"If you can resist... pranking me while I'm asleep... let's... talk more..."
"Ehhh?!"
He wouldn't, of course, but she said it anyway.
Once she woke up, she would probably say something embarrassing again, so she needed him to be inconvenienced just until then.
—She needed to prepare herself for at least that much, if she was to remain his 'songstress.'