As expressionless as always, albeit with the corners of her lips turned up just a smidge, Jeanne spoke.
“Well? Are you two finished with your little lovers’ spat?”
““It’s not a lovers’ spat!””
Kaito and Elisabeth shouted their protests in unison.
And that was how, at long last, the two of them finally settled down enough to talk.
“Now that you mention it, there does seem to be some inscrutable little golden lass here, and the Church’s orders were decidedly enigmatic. Kaito…to what end did you come here?”
“The gold girl’s name is Jeanne, but it’d take forever to explain her whole story. I asked her where the first bit of demon flesh came from, and she said she’d show me.”
“The Butcher said much the same—that by coming here, many things would become clear. Explaining that would prove lengthy as well, though.”
They looked at each other anew, then fell silent. After a while, Elisabeth heaved a heavy sigh. Violently mussing up her bangs, she clicked her tongue in irritation.
“I haven’t forgiven you, mind. Nor do I have any intention of doing so hereafter. But it seems a short ceasefire is in order. There are matters we ought to clear up before resolving our conflict.”
“Yeah, you can say that again.”
Kaito and Elisabeth both nodded. As they did, they sensed someone quickly trot up to them.
They both quickly whirled to the side.
When they did, they found Hina standing there. She was silent, instead merely gazing at the two of them with her big, round, emerald eyes. Upon seeing her meaningful, teary gaze, both Kaito and Elisabeth found themselves slightly taken aback.
Eventually, Kaito smiled to try to set her mind at ease, then extended his hand to her.
“C’mere, Hina.”
Hina took it and squeezed it tight. Then she turned toward Elisabeth. Elisabeth met her gaze with a curt, puzzled frown. Before long, though, Hina’s puppy-dog eyes beat her down, and she held out her hand as well.
“All right, all right. Go on, then. But you mustn’t forget. This is but a temporary…truce…”
Not waiting for Elisabeth to finish her sentence, Hina took Elisabeth’s hand firmly in hers. Based on her expression, Elisabeth was at something of a loss. Hina was still silent. She simply squeezed their two hands with all her might.
As she did, a troubled voice rang out from the background.
“Stop this! Unhand me at once! What is the meaning of this?! Am I being taken prisoner?! Even if that’s the case, surely there must be a better way to transport me!”
“Please settle down, miss. You had things you wanted to know, didn’t you? And with me kidnapping you like this, you even have a pretext.”
“But that’s…”
Kaito turned to look behind him. Deus Ex Machina had taken on a humanoid form and was carrying Izabella bridal-style. It looked almost affectionate at first glance, but its metal fingers were holding her firmly in place.
When she’d heard Jeanne’s quiet cajolery, Izabella’s expression had wavered. However, she was still nobly pursing her lips, no doubt trying to force out words of protest. Before she could, though, Jeanne went on.
“And one other thing. It ain’t often my buddy here takes a liking to someone, ya feel? You’re gonna wanna settle down there, li’l lady. You wouldn’t want one of those hard bits to shlick into someplace weird, wouldja?”
Upon hearing Jeanne’s extreme tone shift, Izabella froze up again. Apparently, her brain had decided to just give up. Not having heard their exchange, several of the paladins rushed over, planning on mounting a valiant rescue for their captured commander.
As she turned to face them, Jeanne cast a chilly glare their way.
“I’d stay there if I were you, misters, if you value your commander’s life. Who’s a good boy? That’s right, it’s you, you filthy dogs!”
The paladins obediently lowered their swords, and Jeanne gave them a nod. Then her honey-blond hair fluttered as she turned back toward Kaito. She began matter-of-factly giving out instructions.
“Summon Vlad, if you would. His presence will be helpful to explain things going forward.”
“…I find it nearly impossible to tell if that girl is mad or not, you know.”
“Yeah, tell me about it.”
As he agreed with Elisabeth’s impression, Kaito ran mana through the stone in his pocket. Azure rose petals and darkness swirled to life. As he elegantly crossed his legs in the empty air, Vlad made a displeased remark.
“Good heavens. You forget those you’ve dragged along with you, then throw yourself into absurd situations time and time again. What a cruel, heartless state of affairs. And it’s not even as if I greatly mind the treatment, but I had my doubts as to whether or not you’d survive.”
“Oh, right. I guess you were in my pocket that whole time.”
“I’d ask that you try to do a better job of remembering me, my dear successor. Why, I was even kind enough to avoid saying anything about that disappointing display you put on last night; one that anyone but that doll of yours would have been sorely disillusioned by… No, wait, stop that. Do be so kind as to stop trying to smash me against the ground. You shan’t hear another peep out of me, I swear.”
Vlad quickly shut up. As the Kaiser gave a deep, amused snort, Elisabeth tilted her head to the side in confusion. Hina, still clutching Kaito’s and Elisabeth’s hands, kept gently crying, and Izabella resumed her attempts to struggle free.
Jeanne looked at the whole ensemble. With the violent battle having finally come to an end, she made a loud declaration.
“Now then, the time is upon us—let us proceed and lay bare the secrets of this world.”
Jeanne’s gait as she walked was leisurely, as though nothing at all had happened.
Behind the whore claiming herself to be a saint of salvation, the enemy of the world, his bride, a peerless sinner, the commander of the Holy Knights, a demon, and the demon’s old contractor followed after.
The seven of them strode onward, to the site the Church had worked so hard to keep hidden.
They strode into the underground tomb, where the kings of old were interred.
8
Ends and Beginnings
The interior of the underground tomb was made from materials Kaito was wholly unfamiliar with. Also, there were a number of seals placed on it. If they weren’t properly undone by a devout follower of God, they would likely prove fatal. But Jeanne, who was practically the poster girl for atheism, successfully unraveled them one after another.
“Pray for the sacrifices. Think of the sacrifices. Believe in the sacrifices. Come forth, O tears of my people, O lives of my people.”
Snapping her fingers, Jeanne caused a number of gemstones to appear out of thin air.
Each time she encountered a seal, she placed one atop it at a carefully selected location, then shattered the seal with ease.
Kaito wasn’t sure what the trick to it was, but the feat’s eccentricity was abundantly clear. As he gazed at Jeanne in wonderment, she turned to him and nodded.
“I can see you’re feeling embarrassed about your own incompetence upon seeing how marvelous I am, mister. And I can sympathize with that. But you needn’t feel shame over the fact that you’re generally worth less than shit. This is what the alchemists who created me, who served me, and who died for me stored and refined their mana for, after all.”
“I mean, I’m not gonna deny that I thought it was impressive, but…”
“No, my dear successor, it goes far past the level of ‘impressive.’ Burn this sight into your eyes—it will undoubtably make for a valuable reference.”
Vlad floated up to a spot beside Kaito, casting his gaze toward the upcoming barrier.
The way he then nodded in heartfelt admiration was both unusual and more than a little uncanny.
“I bought demon flesh from the Butcher, but even I knew nothing of this place. I must admit, I�
�m quite impressed. They’ve laid out one first-rate barrier after another. Without an entire clan spending generations burning up their lives and knowledge, breaking in would prove nigh impossible. No mere graves require such protection. What on earth might they be hiding within?”
The Kaiser, who was standing beside him, scoffed. For the last little while, he’d been duly playing the part of the canine and sniffing all over their surroundings. Then, with a displeased look on his face, he let out a sneeze and shook his body all over.
“Hmph, what on earth indeed. This place was not built for man. An arrogant odor permeates its walls. It’s the odor of mice, scurrying about as they try to receive blessings from a likeness of God… But the odor has a somewhat nostalgic bearing to it as well. Whatever could it mean?”
The Kaiser resumed his sniffing. But it seemed answers still evaded him. He continued following the smell, and Kaito and the others quickly went after him.
As they went down the corridor, they passed by a number of rooms, each one boasting a self-contained mausoleum.
Each doorway was adorned with stone flowers, and within every one lay an imposing coffin. Luxurious decorations and statues stood guard around the coffins, each set based on anecdotes and tales from the lives of their corresponding kings.
As she glanced at each mausoleum out of the corner of her eye, Izabella let out a strained voice.
“Oh, to defile the graves of the kings of old… I am unfit to serve as a commander.”
Still bound by Deus Ex Machina’s steel arms, she went as pale as a sheet. If they left her like that, she was liable to end up mentally scarred.
W-we should probably do something to help alleviate her guilt…
And they needed to explain things to Elisabeth as well. With those two thoughts in mind, Kaito decided to lay out everything he knew while he walked.
“There’s some stuff you guys should probably hear. Here’s what’s been going on up to now…”
Jeanne, who was the original source of most of his information, offered no interjections. She merely hummed in a strangely mechanical fashion.
As she heard Kaito’s story, Izabella’s face stiffened for a whole new reason.
“Paladins made to eat demon flesh, you say? That can’t be… But I certainly can’t deny the existence of a squad I’d never heard of… And there were inconsistencies in the number of people listed as having died defending the Capital…”
Izabella began muttering to herself. She’d clearly had prior inklings that something was amiss.
As Izabella lost herself in her thoughts, a dangerous crimson glare flashed across Elisabeth’s face.
“A second, artificially made Torture Princess, you say? The Butcher did mention something about people working to prevent some event from occurring… You mean to tell me that this girl is the result of that?”
The black, naturally made Torture Princess cast a glance at her golden counterpart’s back. Jeanne offered no answer, of course. Elisabeth, not offering much in the way of words to Jeanne, either, continued speaking.
“So the Church bolstered their strength by forcing paladins to consume demon flesh, then made an attempt on Jeanne’s life. Jeanne’s efforts were obstructing the Church’s work, then. But what was their goal, and what was hers? The Butcher spoke of this as well…”
After hearing Elisabeth’s story, Kaito narrowed his eyes as he thought back over what she’d just said.
“I’d never thought someone would rise to oppose the dreadful end of the story that the fourteen tragedies mark the beginning of. Though your two tales may be small in the scope of things, the results they bear may be monumental indeed,” huh.
Kaito pictured a large chessboard in his mind.
The board was the world. The Butcher’s schemes and Vlad’s avarice had placed fourteen demonic pawns atop it. But although the pawns had been successfully destroyed, large cracks and fissures had spread across the board.
Now, the Church’s new, twisted pawns were facing off against a white queen.
The crimson king and queen, who’d been fighting up until then, were currently floating off to the side.
The Butcher had described the two of them as irregularities. He and Elisabeth had carried out their role, which was to defeat the fourteen demons, but supposedly, their efforts had had little effect on the battle at large. Now, though, they had an opportunity to play an even greater part.
Something’s been thrown into motion, but what? Or, no, maybe it was set into motion a long time ago.
Kaito’s head ached, and he pressed his fingers against his forehead. Then he gazed at the honey locks before him.
There was no doubt in his mind that of all the people present, Jeanne was standing closest to the truth. But she still wasn’t saying anything. Continuing to hum, she shattered the next seal with a pearl-gray stone.
The group descended a set of stairs. With each floor they went down, the seals blocking their path grew in strength.
Then Izabella let out a dumbfounded cry.
“What is the meaning of this? The tomb is only supposed to have five floors!”
The sixth floor wasn’t supposed to exist, but it stood before them regardless, the barrier guarding it more colorful and bombastic than the others. No king was interred there, that much was clear. The room should have been empty, yet its barrier was strong enough to take out a hundred underlings in an instant.
Kaito was concerned—would Jeanne really be able to break through it? But Jeanne’s voice when she spoke was light, a stark contrast to her steely face.
“That’s some baby crap. Your shit’s softer than silk, you crazy fucks. If you wanted to protect it, you shoulda put your lives on the line. We used up an entire goddamn clan; how’s that for crazy?”
And then, as though she were trashing a child’s secret hideout, Jeanne destroyed it.
The stairwell they descended seemed to go on forever.
At the end of it, though, they arrived at a massive door.
An image of the Saint had been expertly carved on its surface. However, she didn’t look the same as the myriad times Kaito had seen her before.
There was one key difference between it and the statues of her hung upside down that he was familiar with.
Dumbfounded, Kaito let out a murmur.
“…She’s standing.”
Her feet were planted firmly on the ground. And she didn’t appear to be in any pain, either. A demi-human apostle was kneeling before her. Jeanne held a red jewel over the Saint’s eye, and the stone melted away, as though extreme heat had been applied to it.
As it did, red light flashed across the entire door like lightning.
Bloody tears began pouring from the Saint’s eyes. Then the door opened on its own, creaking, as it slowly revealed the interior of the room.
And when it did, a bizarre voice rang out from inside.
It was like a monster, screaming.
It was like a human, moaning.
“…What is that thing?”
“A guardian the Grave Keeper created.”
Jeanne replied coolly to Izabella’s shocked question. But no matter how one looked at it, the thing sitting in the middle of the room hardly looked like a “guardian” of any sort.
It was a snowy owl fused with strangely swollen blobs of flesh.
The owl’s head was glowing white and giving off a holy aura. It resembled the beasts La Mules had summoned. But its bottom half was made up of repulsively intertwined feelers. The aura they gave off was sinister.
If that thing was really a human’s creation, then they’d clearly done something horribly taboo. Izabella let out a horrified murmur.
“That…that can’t… The Grave Keeper couldn’t have… Not something like that…”
Its wet feelers were spread and buried throughout the room, like roots on a tree. And they were pulsating.
The Kaiser let out a deep growl, then spoke in a furious roar.
“This is no laughing mat
ter… This, too, is blasphemy; blasphemy against the very nature of demons! Vlad, do you see this? Why does that thing have the vile head of one of God’s messengers?”
“How brilliant. They borrowed God’s power, summoned one of His beasts, then forced it to eat demon flesh. A triumph of the imagination.”
Vlad was barely paying attention to the Kaiser. His voice with thick with ecstasy.
Izabella opened her eyes wide, utterly aghast. Her cheeks quivered. She was barely keeping herself from screaming, her heart clearly racked by despair and an overwhelming feeling of emptiness.
Kaito could understand a little of what she was feeling.
That thing’s existence violates the very foundation of her beliefs.
A monster, formed from a divine creation being forced to eat demon flesh, was sitting within the underground tomb that the Church had been protecting.
It represented a complete and utter betrayal of everything the people believed in.
“A—a question, if I may. Are you, in fact, a messenger of God?”
In an impressive display of rationality, Izabella called out to the snowy owl. Then, still trembling, she continued.
“U-under what beliefs d-do you guard this—”
The owl whirled its head around in the unique manner owls do and stared directly at them. When it did, Izabella choked on her words. Kaito gulped as well.
The owl’s eyes were gold, as big as dinner plates, and utterly filled with madness.
Like a missionary dispensing doctrine, Jeanne explained the monster’s condition.
“Those who eat demon flesh obtain great power but must in exchange offer the pain of others to their body as compensation. Just like myself and the black Torture Princess, the monster before us has likely obtained sufficient pain to maintain its body. But God’s power and Diablo’s power repel each other. Its mind and body were unable to maintain the mental and physical strain, bringing about this warped transformation. All that remains of it is the desire to destroy everything its eyes chance upon. A handy watchdog, ain’t it! One of them real ‘abandon hope, all ye who enter’ types!”
Torture Princess: Fremd Torturchen, Vol. 4 Page 18