…Huh?
Then the black dog’s jaws crunched mercilessly down on Kaito.
It hurts.
It hurts so much.
The pain was the only thing occupying Kaito’s thoughts. The black dog’s jaws had bitten off the bottom half of his body.
Vlad was standing overhead and saying something in a bewildered tone.
“Well now, this is unfortunate. Did he fail to meet your interest? Even so, doing that out of the blue was a bit ruthless… My, my, I didn’t expect him to die in such a manner before even getting started. How disappointing.”
Kaito was twitching and convulsing at Vlad’s feet. Each time he did, filth and blood spilled out of his torn entrails and onto the floor. Normally, losing that much blood would be enough to make his soul fade away. However, possibly because he was in the middle of summoning the Kaiser, his soul, which was being used as an intermediary, got caught in the black dog’s fur and stopped there.
Terrified due to being trapped halfway between life and death, Kaito tried to scream. However, all the air was leaking out of his abdomen, and he couldn’t gather his voice.
“Ah—… Ah—… Ah—…”
“Well, I suppose it can’t be helped. This, too, is a valid way for the curtain to fall. Bets can be won, but tragically, they can be lost as well. He was lacking in both fortune and ability. That was all there was to it.”
With affected movements, Vlad shrugged his shoulders. His body was beginning to transform into black feathers and azure flower petals from the toes up. It seemed that he was quickly giving up on the plan of using Kaito’s mana to remain in the world. His judgment was as gracious as always. Then Vlad vanished, leaving Kaito without even enough time to beg him to stay.
The black dog, too, turned tail and began making his way back down the path he had come from. The wicked energy that had kept Kaito’s soul in place left as the fur it had been wound through faded away.
Kaito’s soul began leaving his body along with his blood.
The next moment, instead of a light at the end of a tunnel, Kaito was assailed by an intense vision of the future.
Hina’s probably going to find my corpse after this.
Given Elisabeth’s current status, it would be impossible for her to summon Kaito’s soul again. Hina would apologize to Kaito for making him wait a little bit, assist Elisabeth in fighting the Marquis and the Grand Marquis, and get destroyed. And the Torture Princess, too, would have all the pain the world had to offer bestowed upon her by the Grand King before being brutally killed.
She would die a lonely, solitary death.
The only thing that would go on would be the world of man. All would be well in the name of their God.
That’s no good. I can’t let that happen. I—!
Kaito didn’t want to die helpless like that, not being able to give anything back to the other two.
Awash in despair and his own lamentations, Kaito fainted in agony.
The moment he did, the blood in his body began releasing a strange warmth. His entire body began heating up, as though it were transforming into flame. It was like some sort of magic had gone and activated on its own.
As he was being toyed with by that sensation, Kaito’s field of vision went dark.
In the deep darkness, all he had left was the unpleasant pain of the heat within his body.
When he came to his senses, he found himself lying atop a damp tatami mat.
…H-huh?
Flies buzzed noisily over his eyes.
He surveyed his surroundings. A dirty fluorescent bulb was swaying from the ceiling. The cracked window was covered in packing tape, and his ripped-out teeth rolled about beneath the tea table. The bits of his gums stuck to them were raw.
Then Kaito looked at his body. The shirt stuck to his scrawny torso was hardened from all the sweat and vomit staining it. His right arm was covered in shallow lacerations, and his left arm hung unmoving and was covered in dark-red stains. His ankle was twisted at an odd angle and had stuck that way. And it was possible that the pain in his stomach was due to a ruptured organ.
This is…the room I was in when I died back in Japan… Wait, did I do something?
Kaito tilted his head to the side. When he’d been assailed by despair and regret, his blood had released so much heat he’d felt as though it were burning up. He could only conclude that he’d subconsciously activated some sort of magic.
Don’t tell me I went back in time?
That was the conjecture Kaito arrived at based on the scene around him and the familiar pain racking his body. Maybe souls had no conception of time. Only bodies, living in reality, were bound by that concept. Maybe his soul, on the verge of fading from the golem body Elisabeth had made, had burned up the remaining mana in its blood and gone backward in time.
Although his brain was addled by pain and malnutrition, that was the conclusion Kaito arrived at.
“In that case…no time to waste, huh?”
He murmured quietly and then forced his body to move. There wasn’t so much as an uninjured hair on him. His body was practically skin and bones. Simply breathing sent waves of pain washing over his body. He also couldn’t stop convulsing, possibly as a result of dehydration. But none of that mattered to him. He wriggled, his body having become little more than a ball of pain.
He had to hurry up and get back to the other world.
I’m going to save them. This time, I’ll make sure I do whatever I can.
Limping on his broken leg, he struggled forward. He made for the ashtray covered in cigarette butts, the same one that had been used to smash his cheek a few days back.
He then threw it at the window so hard he almost dislocated his shoulder.
The conveniently cracked glass made a loud noise as it shattered.
“Urgh, ack, blurgh.”
The shock had sent his body reeling, and he retched where he stood. However, the contents of his gut were minimal. Tears welled up in his eyes at the unpleasant convulsions that struck his empty stomach. In spite of that, he crawled forward, propelled by willpower alone.
His father would be coming home soon. And when night fell, he would strangle Kaito to death. However, Kaito didn’t have time to wait for that. He had to get this over with as quickly as possible.
“I gotta hurry, I gotta hurry, I gotta hurry up and get going… I gotta hurry.”
With shaking fingers, Kaito grabbed a large shard of glass. It sliced his palm, but he barely felt any pain.
The thought of Elisabeth and Hina getting brutally murdered was far more terrifying. More than anything, he wanted to spend as little time as possible in this place far away from them.
Even if I end up not being able to do anything, I still want to be by their sides.
Elisabeth was the person he admired. Hina was the woman he loved.
And he had met both of them for the first time after he died.
This world didn’t have a single person in it who would call out his name with affection.
Then he heard the front door open. That man had returned earlier than usual, possibly related to the fact that Kaito had smashed the glass. His father was running violently down the hallway. He opened the sliding door and was about to shout out something in anger, when, due to how unexpected the scene before him was, he displayed an unusually flabbergasted expression.
“Kaito, you little shit, what’re you doin’?”
“Escaping to another world.”
After answering frankly, Kaito pressed the shard of glass against the nape of his neck.
In the space of a breath, he severed his carotid artery. Blood gushed out, and the ceiling was dyed bright red.
As the heat gradually left his body and a chill ran through him—a decidedly different sensation compared to the warmth of blood loss he’d felt earlier, and one that filled him with a vivid sense of loss—Kaito finally realized a certain possibility.
Huh? Wait, all that stuff that happened up till now…that
wasn’t just a dream, was it?
At that point, his thoughts came to an abrupt halt.
Kaito Sena’s one and only life had ended.
Normally, someone who was killed as meaninglessly as a worm in a death most pitiful, unseemly, cruel, and gruesome wouldn’t get a second shot at life. It would be ridiculous for anyone to expect to be able to go to the world of their choice after they died.
In short, the conclusion was simple. There was no such thing as miracles.
That was all there was to it.
When he came to his senses, Kaito found himself floating in the darkness.
He had no body. All that existed was his consciousness. In fact, he couldn’t even say for sure whether or not even that existed.
They say “I think, therefore I am,” but in a meaningless space with no sense of touch, sight, or hearing, it was difficult to say that the presence of self-consciousness alone was enough to prove one’s existence. There was nobody there to observe him. No one was there to touch him or define him. There was nothing there that he could use to confirm his own sensations.
That fact was an extremely cruel one.
Just how long am I going to be here?
Kaito thought this to himself. Even the passage of time here was ambiguous. He was unable to suppress the sense of curiosity as to how his consciousness hadn’t vanished despite his brain being gone. All he was doing was idly existing.
I guess this is probably the afterlife.
Kaito was familiar with the concepts of Heaven and Hell. He’d concluded that he and Elisabeth were both probably headed for the latter. However, he hadn’t suspected that its true nature would turn out to be like this.
The fact that humanity had yet to obtain information about the afterlife was, in a word, obvious.
And the harshest part about being in that darkness was the fact that he had no definite memories that he could cling to.
In a place like that, where everything was vague, the only thing that could be relied upon was one’s own consciousness and memories. However, Kaito didn’t even have faith in those.
Are the memories I have of the time I spent with Elisabeth and the rest in that world even real?
Or were they nothing more than a fabrication Kaito had conjured up to escape the pain?
At this point, there was nothing he could use to verify them. They might have been nothing more than an incredibly realistic daydream. Given the way Kaito was now trapped in the afterlife, that possibility seemed the most likely.
Kaito had wallowed in his fabrications and then had eventually lost sight of the line separating them from reality and killed himself.
If that were the case, then Kaito Sena’s life would truly have been beyond salvation.
There could probably be no greater sadness.
Eventually, even the time he spent despairing passed.
Surrounded by darkness that continued on forever, Kaito sank deeper and deeper within himself. Searching for salvation, he rummaged through his memories, checked them, and then, on the verge of descending into madness, he arrived at a certain state of mind.
He was incredibly pissed off.
Hold up a minute. I mean, hypothetically, even if that world was false…
Did that really mean that it had no meaning?
Throughout all seventeen years of Kaito Sena’s life, his memories of that world were the only ones with vivid colors.
In that place, even if it had been a figment of his imagination, the experiences he’d accumulated had brought about undeniable change within him.
Enough of a change that he could muster up rage, even when in the midst of such irrationality.
Am I really fine with just staying here, wallowing in regret? Was my whole life really worthless to the very end? And before that, did all of it really just revert to zero?
Amid the darkness, Kaito violently forced the cogwheels of his nonexistent brain into motion. His recollections of that world stirred. Terrible, horrible memories that contained within them a single spoonful of radiant brilliance. They jump-started Kaito’s spirit. There was no way that he could think of those memories as meaningless, after all.
Wasn’t this situation trying too hard to get me to think that all was a dream, a fabrication that never really happened?
That was right—for what it was, it had all lined up too well. Kaito began noticing the incongruities in the recent developments, all of which had practically whispered in his ear that his memories were false and that he should fall into despair.
That’s right. I’ve got a hunch that someone’s trying to get me to feel regret.
They had tried to get him to spend all his time crying. To spend the rest of his days in endless despair. But Kaito wasn’t about to have that.
At first, he had definitely despaired.
Kaito had spent a few hours, a few years—at worst, perhaps even a century—within his mind on the verge of madness. However, little by little, he had regained his composure.
Even if that world had been a lie…
“No matter what kind of person you become, you will always be my dearest, my darling, my destined one, my master, my one true love, and my eternal companion. And I shall always be yours.”
“You fool… You utter imbecile… You had the fortune of obtaining a second life… Just stop already. It’s…fine. You’ve done enough.”
…the memories he’d made there had still been beautiful, and the things he’d experienced there had been real.
Even if it had been fake, the fact that there had been someone who cared for Kaito was real.
And the fact that, in a world devoid of heroes and gods, there had been a woman he had been able to believe in was true as well.
If that’s the case, then there’s no need for me to grieve, right? Depending on the situation, if someone really set this up, then I don’t have to waste time feeling sorry for myself.
From within the darkness, Kaito picked up on incongruities over and over again.
That place was unnecessarily dreadful. It was like the personification of the situation Kaito feared the most—that he’d never actually gone to that other world and just cruelly died at the end of his abuse. The darkness had silently imposed anguish upon him and tried to render his precious memories meaningless again and again.
Something about it was strange. As such, he had to confirm it.
Even though he lacked feet to walk with, a body, a soul.
Even if this isn’t something that someone set up.
As long as he didn’t give up, he might eventually be able to discern the truth.
Kaito was there, after all.
That entire line of thinking had been absurd. It had no logical basis to it. But despite knowing that, it was the conclusion Kaito had arrived at. As he did, he slowly began speaking.
“I don’t care if it’s a fabrication. That’s the conclusion I reached. I’m gonna keep trying to pin down the source of these incongruities. As long as I have my memories, I’m never giving up, and I’m never gonna lose myself.”
His mouth shouldn’t have existed, yet his voice came out all the same. Furthermore, he now clearly sensed another entity. As though a fog had lifted, Kaito’s perception grew rapidly.
There was something standing before him.
Kaito faced it and then spoke his thoughts freely.
“Hey, could you cut it out already? Even if you keep this up, nothing’s gonna change. No matter how much time passes, I’ll always know I’m being tested.”
Suddenly, Kaito felt a sharp pain run across his body. The nostalgic sensation traced the contour of his body, formed it, and bound him.
When he came to his senses, he found himself impaled by a number of dog fang–like wedges. Chains extended from them, fixing his body in place. He was dangling in the air, held up by a thousand chains.
If he took so much as a step, he didn’t doubt that his body would be torn open and his blood would run freely.
A boy stood
before him.
The red-haired boy gazed directly at Kaito. His gaze seemed to ask if Kaito was really okay with this, as well as reproach him, as the boy knew he was in the wrong.
For a second, Kaito was assailed by a sensation resembling vertigo.
Had that boy really existed? Had he really wished for Kaito’s happiness?
Even now, he wasn’t certain. Still, though, he faced the boy and smiled.
“It’s okay, Neue. I’m just protecting the things that I want to protect.”
Kaito shifted his body. The chains rattled, and blood trickled down. The wedges dug into him, tearing his flesh. His arms ripped apart as he extended a hand forward, and his legs were severed as he began to walk.
As he did—insane as his actions were—he made his promise in a bright, cheery voice.
“I’ll make sure to protect the promise I made with you, as well.”
As his body tore, Kaito extended his hand toward hope.
Then, in the deep darkness, he grabbed on to a black dog’s tail.
Geh-heh-heh-heh-heh-heh, fu-heh-heh-heh-heh-heh, geh-heh-heh-heh-heh-heh.
“Very well, very well, very well, very well! Very well! I have taken a liking to you! Your blind devotion to hope, your madness! Your unnatural familiarity with pain! O glass marble, hurled about and horribly twisted, yet remaining clear all the while! Very well! You possess the capacity to entertain me, to entertain the Kaiser!”
An azure flame roared to life. The black dog kicked at the stone floor with his graceful paws. Each time he leaped, the smell of wild beasts filled the area, and the whole room shook. Vlad’s eyes were twinkling, and he laughed as his coat and hair were blown about by the wind.
Before he’d realized it, Kaito was standing back in the room at the end of the underground corridor. His left hand was still gone, and he was covered in blood. Even so, he cast his fierce, antagonistic gaze at the Kaiser.
Torture Princess: Fremd Torturchen, Vol. 2 Page 16