Awakening
I smirked as I watched Ella's reaction.
"Don't you want to know how Leon died?"
Ella replied with a smile. "Yeah."
That was when I realized Ella was broken beyond repair.
It's complete.
From now on, no matter what I said, she wouldn't be swayed. Do you know what the eyes of someone who has crossed the threshold and drifted infinitely far from normal look like? They're no different from normal. A certain degree of abnormality tries to explain itself by comparing to normalcy, but someone truly broken doesn't even bother trying to measure themselves against it.
A being untouched by anything, unchanging in the face of everything.
I laughed along with Ella, haha and hoho, as we retraced the clues of the incident.
Why did it fail?
Why had Ella crossed her threshold? I pondered it, then shook off the thought. It was meaningless now.
I decided to return Leon as planned, for the time being.
That night, I brought Leon back home from the inn where she'd been practicing magic. Ella's reaction was utterly flat. Ah, yeah. Hi. That was it. After that, Ella lost all interest in Leon. As if she'd never known her from the start. It was nothing like the anxious fidgeting when Leon had gone missing.
Leon felt the stark change too—her expression stiffened at Ella's altered attitude.
Can't shake her anymore.
I decided to just leave Leon alone. There was no reason to kill her, and besides, why bother? There weren't many ways to get fun out of Leon anyway, at least not yet. I'd brought her here on a whim, just to prod Ella.
Even after that, I poked at Ella, but she showed no response. It wasn't that she was trying not to react—it was that there simply was none.
Watching someone suppress their emotions is fun, but...
This was boring. Ella had a fixed role in my plans, but with her like this, she was useless.
I decided to abandon her. It was bittersweet, but what could I do? It was like a kid roughhousing and breaking their toy.
The day before academy enrollment.
Ella came to see me. She sat across from me with her usual unchanging eyes.
"…?"
I glanced at her, but not a shred of emotion came from her. It was pure obligation, like she was here because she had to be. No favor, no fear, no obsession.
"You're not going to do anything to me anymore?"
"Why would I need to do anything to you?"
Ella burst out laughing. It wasn't funny at all.
"You just want to watch other people break."
I didn't answer. There was no need.
"I struggled and scrapped to beat you... but the answer was right here all along."
I tuned out Ella's nonsense. It was about time for Ludwig's contact.
"Now that it's come to this, it feels kinda empty. The only way to beat you is indifference."
Ella gave a self-mocking laugh and fidgeted with her chair. Her clothes rustled, sending a small breeze toward the bed where I sat.
"I'm going to the academy, just like you said. I don't care what you do—I have things I need to handle."
Per Ludwig's orders, I had to distract the academy or the empire's attention. It would probably be one hell of an event.
I'd draw eyes while following Ludwig's orders, then slip into the academy and screw him over.
"Before I go, there's something I want to ask you."
How to screw over Ludwig?
"Why do you get fun out of watching people break?"
Breaking our contract at the academy seemed most effective.
"I've made all sorts of guesses. At first, I thought maybe you'd grown disillusioned with human relationships, filling some kind of void."
Draw attention, return to the academy, smack Ludwig in the back of the head.
"But that's not it. If that was really just you filling a personal void, you wouldn't react like this."
In exchange, I'd die savoring the look on Ludwig's face as he glared at me.
Perfect.
Alright, let's do that. Now, what about the lines? What should I say?
"You're broken, but not from some personal deficiency."
To mentally corner Ludwig, mix in some self-loathing and doubt.
External pressure is fine, but I want to see him question and answer himself until he crumbles bit by bit.
"It's more like a deficiency from something other than yourself. Something you think is a problem, but most people don't."
What will Ludwig's reaction be? He won't break like Ella, right?
Revenge on the empire, or on my dead self? Between those—
Ella's voice pierced the gap in my stray thoughts.
"—You want to see exceptions. Not the majority of humans, but a few special ones."
"…"
I looked up, and suddenly Ella was right in my face. Close enough that her breath brushed my forehead as she gazed up at me.
"Ah, finally looking at me."
"What are you getting at?"
"I just thought of a way to stop you. Two ways, actually. Wanna hear?"
I stared at her silently. Her mouth smiled, but her eyes didn't.
"What?"
"First: I help you make those exceptions."
"And the other?"
"Second: I find the exceptions you want to see and kill them all."
Ella stared at me with hollow eyes.
"Your toys, your plays, your exceptions. I kill them all."
"…"
"Hack them to pieces, strangle them with their own guts, burst their hearts."
"Until when?"
"Until you give up and crawl into your own grave."
Ella's lips curved long. The smile reaching her ears made it seem like her mouth was tearing.
"That's why I'm going to the academy."
Before I could speak, Ella cut me off, thrusting the abyss in her pupils at me.
"They're there, right? Your new toys."
Then I had to ask.
"Which one are you choosing?"
Instead of answering, Ella shoved my body with both hands. As I fell back onto the bed, she climbed on top.
Her fingers on my shoulder curled. Index and middle. Left hand. Twice.
"Why?"
As if it was the simplest question, Ella answered.
"There are no exceptions."
I faced her again. Ella's cheeks faintly flushed, her breath carrying a hint of warmth.
"How about it? Feel like killing me now?"
Her eyes rolled, peeking through the door crack. Leon stood there, watching us. Our eyes met.
I smiled and opened my mouth.
"Not at all."
An exception that dies to trash like you isn't an exception.
Ella left for the academy. Soon after, I got contact from Ludwig.
It outlined my role in the academy raid: official terror threat, then execution. While the empire's main forces focused on prevention, Ludwig would infiltrate and recover the Orthea Organon.
Both are real goals, essentially.
Just different priorities. If recovering Orthea was key long-term, the terror was short-term.
So, masked up, I arrived in the capital.
The massive Clock Tower in the capital's center. Blue Moon operatives gathered on its roof and below. Most wore masks.
"Let's begin."
Ludwig stood, opening the Nepia Organon. Its pages of infernal make flipped, emanating mana.
Pre-installed magic circles resonated with the Nepia Organon, opening a subspace.
"Kreek."
"Grrrrowl."
Lower demons waiting inside crawled out one by one from beyond the subspace.
Starting with someone's scream somewhere in the capital, roars, shrieks, and flames spread everywhere. It didn't take long for the whole capital to plunge into massive chaos.
From the high vantage overlooking it all, Ludwig said,
"This is our declaration of war."