——Using Soul Marriage Arts on the castle, even passing Od through inorganic matter.
That was likely the true nature of Yorna's outrageous phenomenon, using spiraling roof tiles as footholds.
Abel had said that her Soul Marriage Arts being cast on at least the hundred people pursuing them was abnormal, but it was far more than that.
If she was distributing a portion of her Od to her own castle and even to her pipe...
"That sounds terribly bad for your health...!"
After all, the act of transferring Mana to someone else was quite exhausting in itself.
In practice, Subaru—who regularly exchanged Mana with
That was a problem caused by being connected through Od with Beatrice alone—the risk in Yorna's case was, by simple calculation, over a hundred times greater.
On top of that, she herself had the combat prowess to pull off these outrageous feats. If she'd claimed she was worn out from distributing power to everyone, it would have been hard to believe, considering she'd just split the castle in half with a heel drop.
"Ha ha! Using some strange technique, are ya? Really, no matter how long you live, there's always some new trick popping up. It's really a headache, I tell ya."
"That is the nature of this land, so there is little point in lamenting. From my perspective, Olbart's techniques are also quite troublesome... best to erase them."
"Ha ha ha! You won't erase me that easily... whoa!?"
Olbart, who had laughed heartily with his mouth wide open, immediately reacted to the hostility and leaped backward.
In that instant, the roof beneath Olbart's feet burst apart, and the impact from directly below sent the tiles flying upward. It was like a return of the very attack that had just launched Yorna into the air.
Moreover, unlike Olbart's single strike, Yorna's came in relentless succession.
With heavy, rhythmic impacts—thud, thud, thud—shock waves chased after Olbart as he flew backward in a spinning motion. Yorna achieved this all with graceful flicks of her slender fingers while perched on a platform of tiles fixed in midair.
"Yah! Hah! Ha! She's going for it!"
"Olbart is quite tenacious too."
"Talking trash about an old man—those are some bold words from a girl your age. But—"
He cut himself off there. The backward-rotating Olbart twisted his body. In that inverted position, he turned to face behind him as the undulating roof rose to meet him.
Shock waves chasing from the front, a wave of roof tiles crashing in from behind—the spectacle of the tower's roof swelling like an ocean was something that made Subaru question his own eyes.
But what followed was equally unbelievable.
"The—"
Olbart saw the tidal wave of tiles surging toward him, kicked off in midair, and plunged headfirst into them of his own accord.
Though it looked like a wave, it was still a tide that hadn't lost the hardness and weight of tiles.
Diving in headfirst would mean every bone breaking, the skull crushed—a horrible end. Subaru involuntarily covered Rui's face with his hand where she clung to his shoulder, and heard her muffled protest of "Mmph!"
But that cruel outcome didn't occur.
"The 'diving underground' technique application—pulled it off on the fly, aren't I something?"
At the moment of impact, Olbart dove silently into the tide as if slipping into water, then burst out from the tail end of the surging wave. Scraping his heels across the peeled roof surface, Olbart grinned, showing white teeth with a cunning smile, and carried on as if he had everything under control.
In truth, Olbart hadn't yet shown the full depth of his ability.
Yorna, for her part, had perhaps revealed the terrifying nature of her Soul Marriage Arts, but— "Fleeing like this—is that really going to achieve Olbart's objective?"
She gazed down serenely at the old man from above, and she too was still without a single wound.
Both had only shown a fraction of their power. That alone was enough to prove the terrifying might of the "Nine Divine Generals," the empire's supreme fighting force.
However, if the battle continued at this pace, with neither backing down, it felt like the stalemate would persist.
It wasn't only Subaru and the others watching from the sidelines who had this impression.
"My oh my, that's some irritating talk. Still, if the 'Third' is getting this stubborn against the 'Ninth,' nobody could blame you for getting chewed out by His Excellency."
"And what shall we do, then?"
"Well now... it's not like I've been running around aimlessly, y'know..."
Olbart stroked his chin while frowning his neat brows at Yorna's question. As he did, the old man's cheeks twisted, and his gaze flicked toward another direction.
Those blazingly bright yellow eyes turned toward the two children observing the battle— "—!"
"Olbart!!"
Olbart's gaze sharpened in an instant, and Subaru flinched.
Immediately after, Yorna's brow furrowed. She kicked off the tiles and lunged at Olbart with ferocious speed. Once again, just like the opening move, Yorna's devastating strike rained down on Olbart.
But— "That's exactly why you've never managed to reach His Excellency even once with all your rebellion."
Olbart spat, and his feet—comically short compared to Yorna's—sprang upward. His sole collided squarely with Yorna's thick-soled heel, and the shock wave sent both their long hair flying in great arcs.
Yorna gritted her teeth. Olbart clenched his jaw. A second later, both bodies were sent hurtling in opposite directions—Yorna and Olbart, one forward and one back.
Seeing the enormous distance that had opened between them, Olbart shoved both arms into his sleeves and pulled them out. Between his fingers—four black, round objects in each hand.
"War Pills!?"
"They look like 'em, don't they? But eating these would cause something real bad to happen. —They're packed with crushed fire magic ore."
Hearing Subaru's scream, Olbart snickered and swung both arms wide.
If what he said was true, those black spheres were bombs. He hurled them not toward Yorna, who was wide open—but rather, no.
"The last rebellion—it was these folks you fought, right? They wouldn't have done something like this, so this must be refreshing, eh?"
Grinning, Olbart tossed the bombs from the rooftop into the vast open sky.
It didn't seem like he was aiming at anything in particular, but there was no mistake. For Olbart, bombs only needed to fall where people were.
That alone— "I hear the folks in your town are pretty tough... but are they tougher than the folks in my village?"
"—You scoundrel!"
The bombs were small, but their hidden destructive power was completely unknown.
Furthermore, it was unclear how many people in the city were under Yorna's Soul Marriage Arts. Leaving those bombs to fall was nothing short of reckless.
Yorna reached the same judgment in an instant. And so— "Ha—aaaaah!!"
Yorna slammed her foot down hard enough to crack the roof, then drew her arm back in a massive windup. In her hand was the pipe she'd also used against Olbart.
Her arm wielding the pipe swept through in a wide, horizontal arc—and simultaneously, the smoke billowing from the pipe's tip traced the same path. The purple smoke, carrying actual mass, slashed across the chaotic sky like a horizontal crescent blade.
—The mass-laden purple smoke caught every one of the scattered bombs.
Immediately after, tremendous explosions chained together, and the roar and shock wave dyed the castle sky. One of the explosions went off right near Subaru—blinding him, knocking him off his feet.
"I—"
He thought he'd seen on TV or in a book that when an explosion happened, you should cover your ears and open your mouth.
Having neglected both, Subaru's body took severe damage. His head rattled, and his vision turned crimson red. Olbart's bombs were of a completely different order of magnitude.
The fact that he was carrying multiple such things—Olbart had to be out of his mind.
And he'd clearly intended to scatter them across the town without mercy— "Aaah!"
A cry came, and a small hand shook Subaru's shoulder.
Looking, what appeared in his crimson, blurred vision was Rui—her face pale with alarm, mouth trembling, tears welling up in her blue eyes.
Seeing this, Subaru tried to answer "It's okay," when— "—Ah."
At the edge of his red vision, he caught Olbart appearing behind Yorna.
"————"
With the thrown bombs demanding her attention, Yorna was still in the follow-through of her pipe swing. Olbart had materialized right behind her, pulling his arm back to deliver a knife-hand strike.
His aim was dead center of Yorna's back—the kind of spot that, in a manga, would pierce straight through the heart in one blow.
He didn't know if manga-like things actually happened in real life. But both Yorna and Olbart were superhumans with manga-like power, and that much was clear from the battle so far.
If this continued, Yorna would die. So— "Rui—!"
Grabbing Rui's hand on his shoulder, Subaru pointed toward Yorna.
The procedure he'd explained to her before entering the castle was put into action. Rui's round eyes went wide—then in the next instant, Subaru's vision flashed as teleportation occurred.
And then— "Ah."
Without a moment to catch his breath, Subaru let out a stunned voice.
The reason was simple—even his crimson-blurred vision had been stolen by a sudden warm sensation. He realized through sensation alone that it was some kind of liquid splashed onto his face.
He tried to wipe it with his arm and noticed something wrong.
Rui's arm in his grip was far, far too light.
"What was that? You lot should've been collapsed over there, shouldn't you?"
Olbart's bewildered voice came, and Subaru raised his dazed face. In his vision was the tilted figure of the old man, who was waving his hands back and forth.
In his red-tinged vision, even redder arms—waving back and forth.
"Rui...?"
Watching this, Subaru called Rui's name and gripped the hand he held tighter.
He thought: we have to get out of here, now. He might have to teleport twice, or maybe more. He'd probably throw up, but that was something he could endure.
He'd endure it, but they had to get away from here right now. So— "Rui! Hurry, or—"
"Well, that'd be a cruel thing to say. She doesn't have a head above her neck anymore, does she?"
"...?"
Faced with Olbart's casual words, Subaru couldn't process their meaning.
He'd shrunk, his brain had become childlike, and maybe that was why he couldn't understand. He didn't want to comprehend what he'd been told, his small brain resisted it, and so— And so, even if told she didn't have a head anymore— "Well now... you've really done it!!"
Immediately after, accompanied by a roar of fury, something shot over Subaru's head. Olbart leaped far to the side to dodge. A straight-line shock tore through the space where Olbart had been just a moment before, and the newly repaired tower was destroyed once again.
But Olbart didn't even spare a glance at the devastating blow.
"Oh my, scary scary. But you should be grateful, fox girl."
"What did you say!?"
"If that boy and girl hadn't come in, you'd be the one dead, y'know? Well, at this rate it's only a matter of time anyway."
"————"
Olbart shook his raised finger as he continued in a familiar tone.
Yorna held her breath, her attention pulled from the old man toward Subaru. But Subaru had slumped to the ground, barely able to pull Rui's light body close.
"Ru...i..."
His vision was red, and he couldn't see Rui properly.
Whether this was due to his eye abnormality or because Rui's form had itself turned red, he couldn't tell the difference.
But one thing he could say: Rui was dead.
He hadn't given her any answers about what to do, or what the right thing was.
She had done as Subaru told her, and the result was death.
Subaru had killed her.
"Child! Child, look at me!"
Gripping his face with both hands, Subaru's downward-tilted head was forcibly lifted.
Straight ahead, through his red vision, was the face of a beautiful woman. The fact that he didn't recognize it as Yorna at first glance was because her expression was one of deep anguish.
It was different from the confident face she'd shown them and the false emperor yesterday.
Different from the gentle expression she'd worn when trying to treat them properly today.
Right now, Yorna's eyes were trembling as she stared at Subaru in pain.
He finally understood why from the reflection in those eyes.
"—Ah."
Kneeling Subaru, his face was in a terrible state.
His left eyeball had burst, crimson-red. His right eyeball had spilled from its socket, trailing threads. The shock of the explosion hadn't been absorbed at all, and his eyeballs had been pushed out.
Like a low-budget zombie movie's special effects—it was almost comical.
"Hih."
Realizing his condition, Subaru let out a breath and his single-eyed vision wavered. But Yorna's hands wouldn't let him collapse.
Yorna trembled her lips, staring at Subaru's face, and— "—Love me. Right now."
With those straightforward eyes, she said something impossible.
To love her—and to do it right now—was an outrageous demand. He didn't even know what that would concretely entail, and loving someone wasn't that simple.
Yorna was, he thought, a good person and beautiful, but— "Child! If you love me, this wound too will—"
"Ha ha ha! Hey now, you're saying some truly outrageous things, missy. You really don't know, do ya? Love doesn't sprout that easily, y'know?"
"Shut up!"
Yorna shouted at Olbart, who was interjecting from behind, and her eyes deepened in color.
Watching this up close, Subaru repeated his ragged breathing and began preparing himself for the wave of pain that was slowly arriving.
One eyeball burst, the other popped out—it wasn't a fatal injury.
Unlike Rui, he still had his head. Which meant, after this, something excruciatingly painful was going to happen. He would probably scream and cry and be a tremendous burden to Yorna.
He'd already been too much of a burden to— "Child."
One word called, and Subaru's consciousness flickered upward.
As if seizing that momentary gap, Yorna's earnest face drew close.
"————"
Yorna's lips overlapped with Subaru's.
A soft sensation touched his face, and he could feel her breath right beside him. It took him time to realize he'd been kissed.
It was partly because he was small, and partly because he had so little experience. His scarce memories were quite distant, and while he thought they'd been quite moving, this was— "My lips aren't cheap. With this..."
As the kiss ended and she pulled back, Yorna's words trailed off, clinging to something unspoken. But Subaru vaguely knew what she'd been about to say.
She wanted to say this: with this, could you love me?
If Subaru loved Yorna, the situation would change.
That was surely the source of her power—the reason for her strength.
But— "Because there's someone I love..."
On the other side of his crimson vision, from far away, the face of the girl he loved floated into view.
Seeing that girl smile made his heart race. And so, Subaru could not love Yorna.
Because he couldn't love her, the way Yorna's face stiffened in painful effort was itself painful to watch.
"Well, that's how things between men and women go, I suppose."
In that instant, accompanied by a disappointed voice, Subaru's vision switched.
"————"
Yorna's face, which had been right before him, vanished. All he could see was the sky dyed red.
Like Rui's teleportation, his vision shifted rapidly—no, it was different from Rui's.
If it were Rui's teleportation, the world would shift to a different image in a vivid instant.
But what was happening to Subaru now was cruder, rougher. His vision was spinning in circles, not a clean cut like teleportation, and what he could see was still continuous with the real world.
Directly below, he could see the kneeling Yorna and Olbart standing before her. Beside Yorna was the collapsed body of a girl—that was probably Rui.
And one more thing—between Yorna and Olbart, something, someone, was standing.
That was— "—Ah."
—That was the child's body—little Subaru's body—with its head gone.
"My oh my, killing kids is rough on the mind. Well, physically it's a piece of cake, though, eh?"
"Olbart—!!"
With a scream that seemed to spit blood, Yorna's body lunged at Olbart. He deflected it head-on, and the two bodies collided, sending the Crimson Lapis Castle into violent tremors.
Shaking, cracking, breaking—destruction spread once more, spreading, and what became of it— That, Subaru couldn't know.
He couldn't know anything anymore. Unable to know, Subaru's head bounced off the roof— Bounced— △▼△▼△▼△ —Dragged into a dark, dark space.
"————"
Nothing. Floating. No limbs. Incomprehensible. No sky, no ground, adrift. Nothing to shake, resist, experience, or shudder at. A space.
A space that felt both like something seen many times before and something seen for the first time.
Something slowly receding, something drawing infinitely closer.
A pitch blackness—one might call it eternal darkness—dominated this space, and within it, something echoed.
Echoed—sobbing. Someone's crying. A voice striking a chest that didn't exist.
"I love you."
Those were words of love.
A voice professing love, begging for love, demanding love, yielding love, loving love.
"I love you. I love you. I love you."
Piling love upon love—words that were supposed to contain all manner of emotions.
Happiness, anger, sadness, joy—a whirlpool of emotions.
Yet the love that filled this space, this eternal darkness, to the brim was of only one kind.
"I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you—"
All of that emotion, all of that swirling love, was filled with nothing but "sorrow."
Sorrow, sadness, grief—loving in tearful anguish.
The sobbing did not stop.
Just listening to it made one want to die, and it did not stop.
Love grieving, love sad, love in sorrow, loving deeply, deeply grieving.
Sobbing while loving, love grieving sorrow, and at last bound together.
"—Where are you?"
△▼△▼△▼△ "I hear the folks in your town are pretty tough... but are they tougher than the folks in my village?"
"—You scoundrel!"
Spinning, spinning—his red vision shifted abruptly, and what struck his eardrums was a desperate voice.
One was an old man, the other a woman—Olbart and Yorna, respectively.
He recognized them. That was as far as his understanding went.
"Huh..."
"Ha—aaaaah!!"
Right after letting out a stunned voice, a heavy thud rang out as Yorna's foot smashed into the castle roof. Simultaneously, she swung the golden pipe in her hand.
The pipe's strike swept in a broad, horizontal arc with tremendous speed and destructive force, spreading purple smoke across the chaotic sky.
Subaru knew what this was for and what would happen.
But before his knowledge could catch up with reality, it happened.
—The bombs struck by Yorna's purple smoke detonated, and the shock wave swallowed everything.
"I—"
Bathed in the same impact as just moments ago, Subaru's vision turned crimson red.
He heard a small, wet cracking sound, and it connected immediately with his now-red vision. His eyeball had burst. That was why his vision had gone red.
Then the reason the other half of his vision had gone dark— "Aaah—gaaaaaah—!!"
Clutching his face with both hands, Subaru screamed from the twin blows of pain and understanding.
He understood. One eyeball had burst. The other had been pushed out. While his brain had resisted understanding, he could ignore the pain.
But if he'd known from the beginning what had happened, that pain could not be ignored.
"Aaah! G-g-gaaaaah!!"
"Mmph! Mm-mmph!"
He collapsed backward on the spot, screaming and crying, and a small body threw itself onto him.
Someone was calling his name. He couldn't understand. His ears were ringing, and his own voice was too loud. Pain—the throbbing pulse of blood flowing. Was it flowing inside or outside his body? He couldn't tell. It hurt. Everything hurt. It hurt, it hurt, it hurt, it hurt—it hurt.
Someone, help. He didn't want pain. He hated pain. He hated pain.
It hurt, it hurt, it hurt so much, so much pain, pain, pain, pain, pain— "I'll—"
"Hey now, that's a bad move."
"—!"
Pain, spinning around inside his head, his red vision glinting and flashing.
At his side, a hand pressed down on him as he tried to thrash about, and it was in the way. He wanted to scream louder, thrash harder, push the pain outside his body.
No—his face hurt. His eyes, his ears. If somewhere else hurt more, if the pain would go somewhere else— "Mmph! Ahh-ahh!"
He slammed his head against the ground. He was forcibly pulled up. Held from behind in a chokehold, unable to move. Pain, and pain was scary. He hated it, he was scared, he was going to die.
"Guh..."
"Kaah—seriously? Fox girl. What kind of body do you have to not die from that? And was that stuff Cecilus said about his neck not getting cut the same kind of thing?"
"...I would never reveal a maiden's secret to a brute who kills children."
Far away, someone was arguing. Between that voice and his own screaming, he couldn't hear anything. He couldn't understand. The pain was to blame for everything.
Yes, to blame for everything. The red and the pain—that was everything's fault. Everything was its fault.
"It's that's fault...! It's—its fault! Not mine! Not mine, ugh—giiih!"
"Mmph—!!"
Flailing desperately, Subaru tried to push everything onto something else. Push it away—if he could escape from it, what would he do then?
He'd think about that after escaping. He'd think about it then, so— "Kids crying and whimpering is hard to listen to. —Shut up."
"Wait—!"
A woman's desperate voice and a gravelly, indifferent one.
After hearing those, something approached with a rasping sound. From behind his head, whoever was holding him in a chokehold tightened their embrace.
But hugging him didn't change anything.
Because once again, a blazing crimson light swelled up and swallowed them.
Swallowed them, the pain vanished, and then— "I hear the folks in your town are pretty tough... but are they tougher than the folks in my village?"
"—You scoundrel!"
In an instant, the voice he'd just heard rang out again, and his consciousness went white.
"Huh...?"
Everything had been so sudden—it cut off with a snap, and then the playback began.
Color returned to his crimson vision, he could hear the sound of wind in his previously deafened ears, he felt the soft body heat of a young girl right beside him, and— "Ha—aaaaah!!"
A heroic woman's voice rose boldly, and in that instant, an arm swung with tremendous force.
He already knew the result that arm's arc would produce.
—Resounding chained explosions, and a shock wave that dyed his vision red.
"G-aaaah—!!"
Clutching his face, savoring the pain of his burst eyeball and his protruding eyeball, Subaru threw his head back, falling onto the roof from behind, and screamed.
"Mmph! Mm-mmph!"
A tearful voice threw itself onto his fallen body.
Feeling it, hearing the ringing tautness that filled the world, lamenting the pain and suffering, Subaru's mind was coated in tears, fear, and "why."
He'd probably died. He had died.
He knew he was dead. It was excruciating, agonizing, and he'd been pushed away from it all. But he'd returned to this place right away, and died again, and it hurt, and the explosion was red.
Knowing all this, Subaru repeated "why" in his mind.
—This is different.
Vaguely, that feeling rang in his head, about to be swept away by pain and redness. But this was something he absolutely must not let go of—an absolute certainty.
One eyeball burst, one eyeball pushed out, eardrums ruptured, so much pain he wanted to cry, and after this he'd die horribly again—he wished the pain would take him away instead. Through tears, snot, drool, and the piss running down his legs, with his desperate mind, he thought this.
"This isn't—"
"Mmph! Ah, mm!"
"This isn't... mine...!"
It isn't.
It isn't, it isn't, it isn't.
It isn't, it isn't, it isn't, it isn't, it isn't.
It isn't, it isn't, it isn't, it isn't, it isn't, it isn't, it isn't, it isn't, it isn't, it isn't.
It isn't, it isn't, it isn't, it isn't, it isn't, it isn't, it isn't, it isn't, it isn't, it isn't, it isn't, it isn't, it isn't, it isn't, it isn't, it isn't, it isn't, it isn't, it isn't, it isn't— "I'm—"
Before pain fills his head, he thinks of the one thing he must absolutely not forget.
Again and again and again, the thing that throws Subaru into this world of red and pain, this is— "It isn't...!"
—Not